Neko Hime
by Leila Hime
Summary: Eries Aston was born a Princess of Asturia, but to her father she'd never be more than a worthless catgirl. Torn by her duty to her country, and her desire to be loved, Eries finds herself not always on the right side of the war. E/F *COMPLETE*
1. Birth of a Princess

Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne or any of its characters. This is all purely for fun so please don't sue me. I don't own anything worth owning anyways.  
  
The hungry Sheep look up and are not fed,  
But swoln with wind, and the rank they draw,  
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread...  
-John Milton, Lycidas  
  
NEKO HIME  
By leila  
  
Chapter 1: Birth of a Princess  
  
The newborn morning light danced across the glistening sea like a million diamonds had been caught in its' waves. A gentle breeze blew the sea air across the city and sent the water gently lapping against the shore where a throng had gathered for a day of celebration. Through the blue sea above a convoy of airships had approached in the night docking on the cliffs that cradled Palas of Asturia. They were finally home, the tired and weary soldiers from a distant war and their king with them.  
  
Theresa stared out the palace window high above the city and saw none of it. Only her face reflected in the glass panes. Once it had been beautiful and proud, the face of queen wrapped in a golden halo of curls that cascaded down her back. Now creased with the year of worrying and waiting. She had cried so many nights staring out the window towards the sea, but the tears would no longer come.  
  
Behind her she could see the crib where a baby, her baby, slept soundly. A dozen times already that morning she had considered grabbing the tiny bundle and tossing it over the balcony. She hadn't. She couldn't. Perhaps if one of the canals had run below the window she would have tossed the whole cradle but there was only the hard ground, and she didn't want to kill it.  
  
Behind her, the sound of footsteps quickly approaching her room echoed down the corridor. She began to shake; her whole body trembled at the sound. The sound of her doom.  
  
He appeared, reflected in the panes, his large muscular body filling the doorframe. In his arms he carried a young girl with golden locks; her arms wrapped tightly about his neck.  
  
"Theresa," he said softly, but she did not turn to him.  
  
"Momma! Daddy is home!" the girl cried.  
  
His free hand turned Theresa away from the window and she was forced to look at him.  
  
"Grava." Her voice shook.  
  
He gently kissed her. "I have missed you, Theresa. Marlene tells me I have a new daughter."  
  
Marlene giggled. "She's so pretty, Daddy."  
  
"I bet she is. Let's take a look."  
  
"You'll wake her," Theresa said quickly. "Wait until later."  
  
"I'll be quiet," he laughed gently. Still holding Marlene he walked to the crib. Grava's face paled whiter than a sheet, and Marlene slipped from his arms to fall on the floor with a thud. Marlene began to wail loudly, but her voice could not outmatch Grava's single quiet word. "Spots." He said nothing else only turned and left the room.  
  
Theresa closed her eyes and collapsed against the window, sliding down the glass to the floor. She buried her head in her skirts and stared to sob.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
A cold hand shook Eries out of her peaceful slumber. She wearily opened one eye to find she was not in her own room, but her sister's. Marlene stood beside the bed, the moonlight casting eerie shadows off her face.  
  
"I'm sorry, sister. I didn't mean to doze off in your bed," Eries apologized. It was nice to snuggle in the warm sheets and she hoped Marlene wouldn't make her move to the floor.  
  
"Oh, never mind that. We'll get the hair cleaned up tomorrow."  
  
Marlene usually got angry when she found white strands of hair in her bed. Not that Eries shed a whole lot; she only grew fur on her wrists, shoulders, ankles, and tail. White and silky fluffs that she trimmed and brushed every day so it would stay hidden beneath her sleeves.  
  
"Mother had a baby, Eries," Marlene said. "A baby like me."  
  
Eries tried to smile. "Can we go see it?"  
  
"I'm going to see her, but Father is there so you'd better wait." Marlene eyes narrowed. "Father's happy to have another normal child."  
  
"What's her name?" Eries asked, at a loss for anything else to say.  
  
"Millerna Sara Aston."  
  
"Pretty."  
  
Marlene turned to leave and Eries buried her head into covers to keep from crying.  
  
"Are you going to be okay, neko?" Marlene asked.  
  
"Yes, onee-sama."  
  
The door clicked shut behind Marlene as she left.   
  
Another daughter, the thought traveled slowly through Eries's mind. On one hand, she was happy it took after Marlene. She would never have to bind her tail to her leg or pin her ears to her head to hide her deformities. She wouldn't be forced to wear the high collars and long sleeves that concealed the black spots that speckled Eries's arms, legs, and neck. She would be free to roam about the castle and the city instead of being confined to a few isolated rooms. She would never be a disgrace to the family like Eries was.  
  
But she would have their mother's love. Both their parents already adored Marlene. They talked constantly about what a beautiful young lady she was becoming and how proud they were of her. Father especially adored Marlene but he did not feel the same about Eries. Father couldn't stand the sight of her; and if her cat-like qualities weren't completely hidden he would get angry. Not all of the dark marks that blemished her pale skin were natural.  
  
Mother was Eries's one refuge. Marlene could be cruel sometimes, but Mother was kind. She'd taught Eries how to embroider and would take her for walks in the garden occasionally. But she didn't really love her, and Eries knew it. Marlene would be embraced in their mother's arms and showered with praise and kisses, she'd tell Marlene how much she loved her and Eries would watch, wanting so badly to held like that.  
  
Mother never said 'I love you'. She only said 'I'm sorry' and Eries didn't understand why.  
  
Eries began to drift back asleep. Maybe this Millerna would love her; maybe Millerna wouldn't hate her for being a freak.  
  
It could have been a minute, or perhaps an hour, but the next thing Eries knew the door was open again and the large form of Father was in the room. He'd once been a muscular man, but now he was large in a different way.  
  
Eries sat up and pulled the sheets around her to hide her spots and tail; there was nothing she could do about her ears.  
  
"Eries?"  
  
"Yes, Father?" She controlled her voice carefully to keep it from shaking.  
  
"Your mother is dead," he said emotionlessly.   
  
The words hit hard and she didn't even notice when he approached her.  
  
"She died soon after giving birth. It was too much for her."  
  
Tears slid down Eries's face and she wiped them away with the sheets. Her father's hand came to rest upon her head and stroked her pale blonde hair almost comfortingly.  
  
"Eries, you must come with me. There's something that needs to be done."  
  
Eries didn't move. Mother was dead. The words were unreal. Mother. Dead. Gone. No more refuge. No more kindness. Father scooped her up out of bed, the sheet still wrapped around her, and held her gently as she sobbed into his broad shoulder. She'd never been held by Father before and it felt good to be carried in his strong arms. It felt good to be held. He didn't even seem to care that she wore only her nightgown and the thin sheet and he didn't seem to mind when she wrapped her speckled arms around his neck.  
  
Instinctively she began to purr, rubbing her head against his comforting shoulder.  
  
Could it be that Father had forgiven her?   
  
They entered a part of the castle Eries had never been to before, somewhere deep below ground where the halls were uncarpeted and the air smelled musty. He brought her into a dark windowless room lit by a single oil lamp. Four men seemed to have been expecting them. One of them took Eries from her father's arms and set her on a cold metal table in the middle of the room.  
  
"Who are they?" Eries asked. She'd never seen these men before.  
  
"They are doctors," Father said. "They will make you better." He turned to go.  
  
"Daddy!" Eries cried out. "Don't leave me!"  
  
"It's all going to be made right," he whispered, and then disappeared from sight.  
  
Eries turned towards the doctors. In the dim light she saw the flame of the oil lamp flash in the polished metal of a knife. 


	2. Matreshka Dolls

Chapter 2: Matreshka Dolls  
  
  
The young woman trudged silently down the marble walled corridors of the castle her haunted blue eyes peering from between the strands of her long blond bangs that fell down to her cheeks. Her walk was unsteady and slow for she carried heavy burdens with her.   
  
The lighter of the two burdens she drug along behind her; the leather traveling bag, filled near bursting, was far too heavy to carry any great length of distance. The second burden was only visible in her eyes, but it weighed her down more than the bag ever could. It was only when she was away from the palace that her eyes came alive and her demeanor changed. Those who traveled with her were always surprised by the difference in the girl. Her veiled appearance and her soft voice didn't change. But she lived when she traveled. And she died again, back home.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Eries had been on a mission, one of her 'princessly duties' imparted to her by King Aston. She rather enjoyed these duties, finding the art of persuasion and negotiation to be something she was not only fascinated with but something she was good at as well. And if this particular mission meant spending two glorious weeks in the kingdom of Fried with several of Asturia's merchants and noblemen, that was quite acceptable too. Sure, the food had been bland, the beds had been nothing more than hard pallets, and the people spent most of the day in quiet prayer, but it had still been a glorious time. It gave her plenty of time to read. The more knowledge she gained the better she became at her duty. And usually came away successful.  
  
This time, however, not everything had gone according to plan.  
  
King Aston's goal for her and the merchants had been to negotiate a new trade agreement. The first ten days had been a wonderful success - Fried wanted to ship out a portion of its rice harvest and was willing to use Asturia's harbor as launching point - but the unthinkable had happened and the negotiation had fallen through.  
  
It was well known that Fried had closer ties to the Kingdom of Daedalus than to Asturia, and once the officials from Daedalus discovered that she, the daughter of King Aston, was there, they'd immediately set about sabotaging the whole operation. Eries and the other men were left gaping as their once gracious hosts became frosty and asked them to leave.  
  
Though Eries loved Asturia dearly, she dreaded being back, and the worry had been enough to make her physically ill on the way home. She'd have to face King Aston and confess to the botched deal sooner or later. She preferred later, so she had gone to find her sisters before coming before her father. It wasn't really her fault, this time; just one little mistake from the past, one little slip of the tongue had reemerged to haunt her again. It had been three years ago. Just how long would Lord Daedon hold onto his grudge?  
  
Marlene sat by herself at a table in her quarters, her golden curls brushing against the pages of the diary she wrote in. On hand came up to shush Eries as she entered, bidding her to keep quiet until the thought was finished. The satchel Eries carried with her grew heavier as she waited for her older sister to finish the entry. Growing weary of waiting, Eries heaved the bag up onto the table where it broke its already strained seams and spilled its load of books across the surface and onto the floor.  
  
The diary quickly shut with a snap, and Marlene finally looked up to acknowledge her little sister. "You're back from Fried rather early."  
  
Eries nodded and immediately changed the subject. "I'm returning the books you let me borrow."   
  
"I heard Lord Daedon's advisors showed up," Marlene said with a grin tugging at the corners of her painted lips.  
  
"So everyone has heard already?" Eries asked with a heavy sigh.  
  
"Yes, and Father is furious. What did you call Lord Daedon again?"  
  
"I was twelve years old," Eries protested, chewing on her bottom lip.  
  
"You called him a 'trumped-up, pompous, aristocratic tyrant' who 'wallowed in a swill of luxury while his people starved for the crumbs of his table'," Marlene grinned. "You told him he had less brains than a horses rump, and less compassion than a rock through a temple window."  
  
"And he called me a pretentious little brat before shoving me in a jail cell for six weeks," Eries said. "I think we were both right."  
  
"You need to work on your eloquence," Marlene said. "You're too good at making enemies."  
  
"I didn't say anything to offend Duke Fried. He just heard about that fiasco, and took it as an insult because of his ties to Daedalus."  
  
"Father's been in a real uproar since he heard the news that the trade fell through."  
  
"I thought he would be. I've been sick with worry over how he's going to take it. He never should have sent me to Fried. He knew the Duke's mother was Lord Daedon's elder sister," Eries protested meekly.  
  
"Oh, I'm sure Father will readily admit he was wrong," Marlene said her voice dripping with sarcasm.  
  
Eries sat down across from Marlene and rested her head on the broken satchel. "I'm really going to get it this time, aren't I?"  
  
"Might as well get it over with. The longer you avoid him, the angrier he's going to get."  
  
Eries groaned.  
  
"Oh, come on. You made your bed, now lay in it," Marlene said. "If you can't handle the consequences, you should learn to handle your tongue. Or just plain refuse to take the mission."  
  
Eries sat straight up and stared at Marlene incredulously. "And then what would happen? Have you ever tried saying 'no' to Father?"  
  
"No," Marlene said, averting her eyes to her diary.  
  
"Then don't expect me to."  
  
Marlene sighed. "Well, maybe you should just keep quiet from now on. Women are supposed to be seen, not heard. The same goes for little catgirls posing as women, too. Besides, I'm sure that new merchant he appointed to the Council could have handled it without you. When is Father going to give him a chance?"  
  
"Meiden Fassa?" Eries shuddered. She'd met the man shortly before this trip and she'd taken an instant disliking to him. Meiden was a miser, though he preferred the word "economical." He had a way of looking at people that wasn't actually looking at them, but calculating the price of the clothes and jewelry and the value of the person themselves. "I rode on his merchant ship, and met his children. They talked to me on the way home, but I think there was an ulterior motive behind it all."  
  
"Oh, and what was that?"  
  
"They wanted to borrow your books. They may live on a merchant's ship, but they don't have much in the way of possessions. Meiden makes them pay for any trinkets they want to use from his ships, and he sells their stuff if he thinks he can make money off it. There was one room on the ship for the girls and one for the boys so they slept like cargo stacked, one on top of each other. I felt sorry for them, so I let them borrow the books. The oldest boy, Dryden, was coming by all the time. He said he was saving his money to buy a leviship of his own and start a business for himself." Eries played with her pale strands of blond hair that framed her face and fell into her eyes. "Dryden said it would have lots of open space inside and he'd have two dozen rooms just of his own quarters. And a library full of books that he'd never sell. He told me all about it."  
  
"Sounds like you talked to him quite a bit," Marlene commented, a wry smile wringing her lips. "How old is he?"  
  
"About my age. Well educated, but also rather immature and rude when he wasn't after something. Still, he was more interesting and pleasant to be around than any of the older men on the way back," Eries replied.  
  
"Sister!" a voice called down the hallway, followed in a moment by its source, Millerna, who wore a pair of boy's trousers beneath her frilly dress. She flounced into the room, her golden curls bouncing about her face, and she plunked down next to Eries. "Welcome home, sister. Did you bring me a present?"  
  
"Of course," Eries said while rummaging through the pockets of the satchel until she found Millerna's gift.  
  
"A doll?" Millerna scoffed openly.  
  
"I picked it up at the bazaar in Fried. Dryden told me about it. It's actually several dolls that nest inside one another. He called them Matreshka dolls."  
  
"Wooden dolls," Millerna said dryly.  
  
"There's another one inside. See?" Eries popped the doll in half to reveal another one inside. "Neat, huh?"  
  
Millerna shrugged and began pawing through the pile of books that scattered the table. "Did you bring my book back?"  
  
"Yes, Millerna," Eries said and joined in the search.  
  
"Did you read it?"  
  
"Of course, I read all these books. Some of them twice." She pulled Millerna's "Tales of Love and Honor" book from the pile.  
  
"I remember that," Marlene said taking the book. "I used to love it when I was little. There was a story about a handsome knight and beautiful princess. And her father's sacrificing the princess to the hungry dragon. So the knight slays the dragon and saves the princess. And they run away and live happily ever after."  
  
"I liked the one about the poor servant girl who bravely saves the life of the prince," Millerna said. "And the one where the princess's father won't let her marry her true love so she runs off with him, leaving behind all her royal pleasures for a simple life."  
  
"They were so sweetly romantic," Marlene sighed and flipped through the pages of the book. "Which one did you like, Eries?"  
  
"I thought they were ridiculous," Eries said bluntly. "That sort of thing doesn't happen in real life. And if it does there's nothing honorable about it."  
  
Millerna looked at her with big eyes. "Why not?"  
  
"It's irresponsible," Eries said sharply. "A princess is born to great privilege and great duty. And it's her responsibility to do what is best for her people. You marry a man who's good for your kingdom and love follows later. No princess would marry a poor man. No prince would go live with a swine-herder's daughter. No one gives it all up for love."  
  
"Why not?" Millerna asked.  
  
"What do you know?" Marlene asked there was bitterness in her voice. "Since when do you know anything about love?"  
  
"I'm no expert on love, but I do know duty. And responsibility. For a princess, a marriage is a responsibility."  
  
"One that you'll never know," Marlene said. "You'll never get married, Eries,"   
  
"Why not?" Millerna asked, thoroughly confused.  
  
"Because it'd have to be a forced marriage," Marlene laughed. "And because any man forced into marriage with her would run screaming from the bedchambers on their wedding night. There would a war declared in the name of his honor."  
  
Millerna looked confused, and Eries shot her older sister a cold glare. Marlene knew better than to bring up things like that up. Not around Millerna, at least.  
  
"I believe in love, even if Eries doesn't," Marlene continued. "Love doesn't have to mean abandoning your responsibilities. Not if the man you love is noble and brave and honorable and smart. Handsome is good, too. And if he's perfect, why would you have to give him up?" A dreamy look entered her eyes.  
  
Millerna looked up at Eries. "I don't want to get married either. Boys are gross." She stuck out her tongue.  
  
"Yeah." Eries stuck out her tongue too. "I won't ever fall in love with some guy."  
  
"You're such children," Marlene said contemptuously and silenced them.  
  
They watched as Millerna cracked open each doll and set them in a line along the edge of the table. The dolls were wooden girls with brightly painted faces and monk's robes. One had gold hair, the next black, the next one's head was covered. Each one was unique and each one a head shorter than the one before it. The smallest Millerna tried to pry apart, but it was not made to open.  
  
"My ladies," came a male voice. Eries turned and saw a knight in the doorway. He must have been about her age, but he looked much older. Shoulder length blond hair, a handsome face, and the uniform of a Knight Caeli. "Eries Hime, your father sends word he wishes to speak with you."  
  
Eries nodded. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Marlene smile at the knight.  
  
"Thank you, sir knight. What is your name?" Eries asked.  
  
Marlene answered for him. "This is Allen Schezar, the newest and youngest member of the Knights Caeli. And the finest swordsman on Gaea."  
  
"You're too kind," Allen said.  
  
"Allen," Millerna piped up. "Open this, won't you?" She presented him with the doll.  
  
"It doesn't open, Millerna," Eries said. "That's as small as they get."  
  
"I bet there's another one in there. Chop it in half with your sword," Millerna demanded. "I want to know what's in there."  
  
"If I chop it in half it will be broken," Allen said. "I wouldn't want to ruin your toy."  
  
Millerna shrugged.  
  
"You better get going, Eries," Marlene said. "Don't keep Father waiting any longer. And take Millerna with you."  
  
"Why should I go see Father?" Millerna asked. "He asked for Eries, not me."  
  
"Then just leave," Marlene said. "I'd like some peace and quiet." Eries saw her smile again at the knight, and the knight smile back as well.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Eries had hoped to find King Aston in a place where there were other people, where it wouldn't just be him and her. She hoped that would in the throne room; she always felt more confident there. Then it would feel like any other mission she went on; she would be the diplomat and Aston would sit like a fat toad, squashed in a throne that had been constructed for a god.  
  
Instead, he waited for her, casually sipping his wine, in his study, in a chair where he was the larger, the dominant force, and she was the lowly beastgirl. He rose to meet her as she entered; he stood a full head taller. Aston dismissed the guards and shut the door with a loud thud. Eries' heart began to race.  
  
"Two years," he growled. "Two damn years I spent forming that alliance with Fried. For two years I worked so Asturia would benefit! And in days you manage to destroy it completely!" His voice crescendoed louder and louder as he leaned closer to Eries' face She could smell the drink on his breath. "Damn you, girl!" He shoved her hard across the room and Eries crashed into the bookcase. She crumpled like a rag doll to the floor, not bothering to cover her head as books spilled on top of her.  
  
Aston came closer. "Damn stupid girl. A thorn in my side. That's what you are."  
  
"I'm sorry, Father," Eries choked out, tears spilling down her cheeks. Every ounce of strength was sapped from her body.  
  
"Don't call me that."  
  
"I apologize, King Aston," she whispered.  
  
"If they would kill you, then I might find some value in you." He tipped a heavy book off the shelf and it smacked against her shoulder. His fingers crawled over to the next book and dropped if off the shelf, continuing the process as he spoke. "Then I could gain sympathy from the other kingdoms. They'd be up in arms. Killing an innocent princess, that'd be awful. And I, the grieving father, would play my part. We'd gut those miserable nations for all they're worth." He chuckled and tipped another book off the shelf and onto the back of her head before going back to his desk to find the wine.  
  
Eries didn't move. She'd realized long ago that King Aston used her as an ambassador to keep the more dangerous allies at bay. They didn't dare kill her for fear of retribution, but Aston wouldn't shed any tears if they did. She played his game to get out of the palace and away from him, from those who knew her dark and dirty secret.  
  
  
Aston and Marlene. As far she knew, they were only ones left who knew of her deformities, as she'd once called them. Now she knew it was just her mother's infidelity that made her different, that made her unclean. Marlene and Aston were apt to shove these facts in her face whenever they were alone. Or whenever they were angry or frustrated with her.  
  
"I'm glad you're not really my daughter," Aston said with a drunken smile, coming to stand above her again, clutching a half empty bottle in his hand. He must have been drinking all morning for a second bottle sat on his desk, already empty. "I'd be ashamed of fathering something so stupid. But you're only a beastgirl. A stupid little beast I cannot tame. And now I have to go repair my little pet's mess. Damn foolish beastgirl. Damn foolish me." He kneeled beside her and pushed the bangs away from her face. "Foolish little thing."  
  
Their eyes locked together. Eries could not tear her gaze away from his, and they sat on the floor like that for a long time, his hand cradling her face, his eyes digging deeply into her soul.  
  
Aston's mood shifted once more and his eyes became angry. "Stand up." She didn't comply fast enough and received a smack across the face. "Ungrateful, wench. I've given you everything when you deserve nothing. I could have thrown you out on the street long ago, but I kept you. Made you a princess. Made you my ambassador. Gave you power and position your kind could only dream about. And you repay me with this insolent behavior! By being a thorn in my side!" Eries steeled herself for another blow.  
  
He swung the wine bottle, but it hit the bookshelf instead of her and the bottom smashed apart. Aston looked at the jagged end of the bottle. "I could pull that thorn out right now," he said darkly.  
  
"Daddy?" a soft voice questioned.  
  
Eries looked across the room to where Marlene stood half hidden behind the door. Her eyes tried to avoid Eries and her voice pretended nothing was wrong.  
  
"What is it, Marlene?" Aston asked, setting the broken wine bottle on the shelf.  
  
"Yes, um, well," she searched the air for help. "I heard you might be going to see that Zaibach fortress. And I was worried about you since it might be dangerous there."  
  
Aston's eyes trailed from Marlene down to Eries. "Don't worry, darling. I've decided to send your sister in my stead. And she's going to be a very good girl, right?" Eries nodded. "And not cause any more trouble for me since I have to go to Fried now?" Eries nodded again, the tears rolling down her face. "And she's not going to do anything to upset Zaibach now, is she?"  
  
"I'll be good," Eries said, still nodding.  
  
Aston smiled. "You'll leave in two weeks. You may go now."  
  
Eries quickly joined her sister outside the door.  
  
"If you'd be good in the first place this wouldn't happen," Marlene whispered fiercely, and offered her handkerchief so Eries could dry her eyes.  
  
The blond knight, Allen Schezar, was waiting down the hall.  
  
"Are you alright, Eries Hime?" he asked.  
  
"She's fine," Marlene said hastily. "She just gets all worked up over politics. So emotional about all that negotiation stuff." Marlene laughed. "That's my sister; if her head's not buried in a book, it's in Father's business or some matter of state."  
  
Allen smiled. "Ladies shouldn't worry about such things."  
  
"I always tell her that, but she never listens." Marlene pushed Eries off down the hall. "Now off you go. Get yourself cleaned up, your face is getting all red and puffy."  
  
Eries nodded, sensing her presence was not wanted anymore by Marlene. "Thank you, sister. May I borrow some more books from you? I think it's going to be a long trip to Zaibach."  
  
Authors Notes: What I wanted to do with this story was make it fit with the plotline of the Vision of Escaflowne the best I could, and not only have the plot of that story affect Eries in this one, but have Eries's action in Neko Hime affect those in Escaflowne, without messing up the Escaflowne plotline. (um... it will make sense as you read more)  
For example, there are several plot points in this chapter that are the cause of events in Escaflowne. I'll leave the most obvious one out (you should have gotten it anyway), but I will cite the less than obvious example. When Millerna later visits Fried the Duke comments on her eloquence and how magnanimous he finds her. In this chapter, he has obviously thought of Eries as less than eloquent, so that's why he's so impressed with Millerna later on.  
There will be much better and more interesting ones later on. But you'll have to keep on reading. Don't worry, not all the chapters will be this long. 


	3. Whispers of War

Chapter 3: Whispers of War  
  
The Zaibach fortress was not what Eries had been expecting. For starters it floated. Eries had never seen something that big resting in the air before. It must have taken an enormous levistone to keep such a thing afloat and several energists to keep what seemed like a small cities worth of people in full power. A bland and faceless guard had led her and the other ambassadors on a short tour of the fortress. They couldn't have seen an eighth of it, though. Every corridor branched off into several others. Every wall contained several doors.  
  
A natural curiosity led Eries to try and open one by falling behind the rest of the group. But much to her surprise she couldn't find a doorknob. Before she had a chance to figure it out the guard yelled at her to rejoin the group.  
  
"It's pretty easy to get lost in a place like this." And Eries nodded sporting her best submissive face. The guard continued on walking quickly along, his metal boots banging loudly against a metal floor and his voice droning on in a boring speech saying nothing of any importance. They ended up in front of a large door and Eries watched him intently wanting to know how he would open it. He finger pressed a small protrusion in the wall beside the door and it slid back smoothly and silently.  
  
All the ambassadors made small sounds of being quite impressed. Inside it looked like a small theater with stadium seating and a curtain in the front.  
  
"Are we going to be seeing a show?" Eries asked.  
  
"In a way," the guard said. "Zaibach wants to show her neighbors the new technology it has acquired."  
  
"Technology?" Eries asked unfamiliar with the word.  
  
"You'll see. Zaibach's technology is vastly improving the quality of her people's lives. It will be what brings peace and prosperity to the new future."  
  
Eries scanned the faces of the other men already seated. Down below there was a line of dark cloaked men of Zaibach. And all around there were men from well over half the kingdoms on Gaea. And as far as she could tell she was the only woman present. She took special note of those from Daedalus and prayed they wouldn't take note of her. She settled herself between two Council members and tried her best to remain hidden in the shadows.  
  
The next few hours were filled with the most amazing things Eries had ever seen as Zaibach showed off its technology. There were little boxes that when you spoke into them your voice emerged from another little box. And strange glass tubes that lit up brighter than torches. Screens that glowed and words and pictures would emerge on them. And one of the black-cloaked men took off his cloak and revealed a metal prosthetic arm that worked like a real one.   
  
Eries wasn't sure how much she liked the look of that. His fingers had been fashioned like claws and it only furthered the worried thoughts that begun to emerge ever since she'd first seen the fortress. But she kept silent for now. She could see Basram's officials becoming especially exited about everything they were seeing.   
  
The most amazing thing came at the end when the strange curtain lifted to reveal an enormous black mirror. A dim glow flickered on the screen and it suddenly burst to life revealing an enormous face on it. An old man with long white hair and dead purple eyes. Below the black cloaked men rose to their feet, except for the one with the prosthetic arm who was already standing. He didn't even turn to look at the enormous face, but scanned the crowd watching their reaction.  
  
"Welcome, friends of Zaibach," the face said. "I am the emperor of Zaibach, Dornkirk."  
  
Eries stared in amazement as Emperor Dornkirk continued to speak, but she noticed the man with the arm of metal was looking up at her with a dark expression and she found it quite distracting.  
  
One of the Council members beside her leaned across her head and whispered to the other. "This is incredible. We must enter into trade negotiations."  
  
"I bet this would cost us a pretty penny," the other whispered back. "Does Asturia really need this technology?"  
  
"Of course! The question is can we afford it?"  
  
"No, the question is do we really want to see King Aston's face made that large?" The men chuckled to themselves ignoring the fact that Eries was standing right in between them. She didn't care if they talked about Aston that way, but she wished they would shut up so she could hear what the giant head was saying.   
  
The mirror turned black again and the face of Zaibach's emperor disappeared. Eries shook her head. It was certainly incredible, but something told her Zaibach was holding back on them. Only letting them see what they wanted them to see. This fortress was huge and there could only be one reason for making a mobile fortress this big. And it wasn't peace.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Eries had gone to look for a bathroom. At least, that's what she told the Asturian ambassadors. It was quite likely there was one in the rooms provided but its' location was a mystery. The men were running their hands along the walls looking for a protrusion to press, but not having much luck. So Eries said she was going to look for one or somebody who could help find it since the men were too proud to admit their natural body functions.  
  
Only Eries wasn't interested in finding bathrooms. She was out to find what was going on in the other seven-eighths of the fortress they had passed by in their whirlwind tour. There were guards everywhere, so her exploration was somewhat limited to where she could sneak without being caught. Luckily, Eries was light on her feet, making no sound as she padded along the metal hallways. And the guards didn't seem overly vigilant, probably used to being able to hear everyone who was approaching.  
  
With no clue of exactly where to go, Eries wondered the hallways. The further she got the fewer guards she saw. Apparently there were more worried about keeping the ambassadors in the sleeping quarters than what would happen should one of them make it out.  
  
There really wasn't much of interest she came across in her small spying session, but upon wanting to return back to her quarters she discovered she didn't know how to get back. Everything looked the same.  
  
"Now I know I didn't go up any stairs," Eries muttered finding herself at a stairway that descended down into darkness.  
  
Eries shrugged and went down the steps anyway. She could always say she was going back to the leviship to get her bags should she get caught.   
  
The stairway was dark and didn't seem to have a bottom as Eries descended further and further. With a whir and click a door opened spilling light into the stairwell. Eries jumped back in surprise expecting to be caught. She pressed herself against the side of the stairway expecting to see someone on the other side since she had pressed no button, but there was no one. And the door whirred shut again.  
  
For a full ten minutes she stood there in the dark. Someone must have decided they didn't want to go up. Now near positive they would be gone she slipped down to the next step and the doors opened again. Eries backed up once again and the doors shut. An idea formed in her head. The doors were opening because of her foot on the step. She tested the theory. One step closer - open. One step back - closed.  
  
She finally stopped playing with the doors and walked through them. A new corridor came into sight. Metal like all the others, but only one door at the other end. This one too opened as she approached it making Eries wonder briefly if it was her very presence that was opening the doors. The theory was quickly forgotten by what she saw next. Inside was a large hanger holding at least two dozen guymelefs and twice as many soldiers standing around working and operating them.  
  
"My gosh, so many guymelefs," Eries murmured to herself. "I knew this was a fortress of war."  
  
One of the melefs was moving across the hanger floor.  
  
"Try it now!" a burly voice yelled.   
  
Out of the arm of the melef three strands of long metal emerged, moving forcefully at first but falling limp to the floor after forty or fifty feet.  
  
"Shit!" the pilot exclaimed. "There's not enough pressure!"  
  
Those near to him laughed. "Excuses, excuses. You just don't have enough talent to make a sword. Don't let so much out."  
  
The pilot tried again, not having much more success than the time before. "Shit, no one can do this!" That prompted more laughter from the other men. Across the hanger floor Eries could see other melefs and their pilots mimicking the actions of the first. None of guymelefs seemed to be doing what their pilots wanted them to. Though Eries wasn't quite sure what 'making a sword' meant since swords were made for guymelefs not by them.  
  
"What are you doing?" an innocent voice asked behind her. Eries spun around clutching her hands to her chest to keep from jumping out of her skin. A small ghost of a boy stood behind her. A gangly and pale little thing, probably the same age as Millerna. He had silver hair and his eyes were red as blood. Though his voice had sounded innocent enough those eyes told another story. There was nothing innocent about this little boy.  
  
Eries's silence as she studied the little boy brought a glimmer to his eyes and wicked smile crept across his lips. The boy sucked in a deep breath and let out an ear-shattering scream.  
  
Eries tried to grab him and clamp her hand over his mouth but the boy squirmed from her grasp and kept on screaming. "Shut up!" Eries screamed back at him panicking at the sound of dozen's of footsteps approaching quickly from the hanger.  
  
A strong hand pulled her away from the boy who shut his mouth and grinned as soon as Eries was apprehended.  
  
"What are you doing here, girl?" someone yelled right into her ear.  
  
"I was..." Eries began, but was cut off by the pale little boy.  
  
"Spying," he said. The glee was very evident in his voice. "And she tried to attack me."  
  
"I did not!" Eries protested. "I just got lost."  
  
The soldiers didn't listen and forced her hands behind her back locking them together in irons.   
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Eries had barely sat down on the cot in her jail cell when the door opened again. Word seemed to get around quickly in this place. But it was, after all, a misunderstanding, and Zaibach probably wanted to clear things up as fast as possible and avoid a messy confrontation. Eries felt pretty confident about the whole thing. They'd believe her story; after all she was just a girl. What harm could she do? Eries laughed to herself.  
  
The man who entered didn't seem the reasonable type, though. He was a pillar of a man wrapped in a black cloak. She recognized him as being the one with the cruel looking prosthetic arm. He had steel blue hair that was spiked straight up and he had a long, very grave face. His eyes were marred by purple tattoos and a teardrop upon his right cheek. He was tall. He was very tall and Eries felt very small sitting on the cot under the cold and piercing eyes. But she didn't let her shaken confidence show.  
  
Neither of them spoke, each waiting for the other. Eries sat silently and waited it out. It would be foolish to say anything if nothing had been asked. There were no questions to answer, yet.  
  
"What were you doing in down in that hanger?" he asked in a very deep voice.  
  
"I got lost," Eries said.  
  
"Lost? Where were you going unescorted?"  
  
"To the leviship," Eries said.  
  
"Why?" he pressed.  
  
"To get my bags," Eries said.  
  
"And what was so important that you couldn't wait for the porters to bring them to you? That you would wander through our fortress unescorted?"  
  
"My books," she said simply.  
  
"Why didn't you have an escort? This is a big place, you don't know your way around."  
  
"I realize that now."  
  
Pale lips curved into a smirk. "Either you're a very brave little girl or a very foolish one. I think this isn't the first time you've been questioned."  
  
Eries didn't say anything. He hadn't asked her anything.  
  
The man chuckled. "You never say anything unless I directly ask you. So that makes you clever little girl who's both brave and foolish. I'd guess you must then be the princess Eries Aston of Asturia. Am I correct?"  
  
Eries nodded.  
  
"You're reputation proceeds you, princess. It's an honor to finally meet the one who directly assaults kings to their faces." His eyes glimmered as Eries glared at him from beneath her bangs. "Don't think that Zaibach doesn't know what you're all about. How you try to manipulate and intimidate every kingdom into submission. And it works most of the time. But Zaibach will not be pushed around nor intimidated by a girl," he said. "You've been going about all this rather foolishly. Your tongue and lack of discretion have put you in a heap of trouble. Asturia's intentions by sending you here are far too obvious."  
  
"How dare you insult me like that?" Eries barked. "As for the rest, it is no secret that I am my father's ambassador, but I am not his spy."   
  
He chuckled again. "Perhaps you see it that way."  
  
"What do you mean by that?" Eries shook her head of his words. "I got lost, that's all. I didn't see anything or hear anything that could possibly be of any consequence. Now I'd like to return to my corridors."  
  
"I'm afraid it's not quite that simple, princess," he said. "You don't understand the magnitude of what you have gotten yourself into. I think you'll be here for quite sometime."  
  
He turned and left he room the door sliding shut behind him and locking with a small click. Eries flopped sideways on her cot letting out a sob. Her nerves were thoroughly rattled by the dark man and she was finally able to let them shake her for a moment. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. That man was certainly scary. But not nearly as scary as Aston was. And he would not be happy when she returned home.  



	4. The Right Hand

Chapter 4: The Right Hand  
  
Several days had passed before the dark man returned leaving Eries to become familiar with the tiny space that was now her home. She spent an enormous amount of time pacing from wall to wall. A mere five-step journey, but it didn't feel good to lie on the cot all day. And pacing was better staring at the ceiling and feeling the worry gnaw away at her stomach. The quiet solitude was broken every couple of hours by a guard who sometimes brought her food and sometimes walked her to the bathroom so she could relieve herself.  
  
The guard never said much, and didn't know anything about when she might be released or what was happening with the other men from Asturia. Eries worried about them. Aston would be even more furious than normal should they be incarcerated because of her. She worried about them because they, no doubt, would not be treated hospitably. That worry kept her from sleeping right, and kept her pacing in that pathetic line over and over again trying to work out her tension.  
  
When the dark cloaked man returned Eries sat on the cot casually though wanting to prove she wasn't rattled at all by the experience and she wasn't about to admit she'd been snooping around the fortress. Such an act would be suicide. No kingdom tolerated spies. They might send her home with an order to never return to Zaibach, but the men, who were far more expendable than she, would not be so lucky. She had to maintain her story for their sake as well as her own.  
  
"So do you have a name?" Eries asked after the man finished the same line of questions as before. She wanted to leave the topic of herself behind.  
  
"Folken," he replied.  
  
"Folken," she repeated slowly. "Are you're a what to Zaibach?"  
  
"I'm a sorcerer."  
  
"I saw you before; you're missing your right arm. And Zaibach's technology gave you a new one. How'd you loose it?"  
  
"That's not important," Folken said. "And I'm asking the questions here."  
  
"Fine. Ask away. I've already told you everything," Eries said. "I just want to go home."  
  
"Patience, princess. We've already questioned the other ambassadors and they've been sent back to Asturia. It was obvious they knew nothing of this incident."  
  
"I wouldn't call it an incident," Eries said.  
  
He ignored her and continued. "They'll send word of what happened to your father and we'll get this all sorted out. We do not want to ruin our relationship with your kingdom. But we can't merely let this pass by. So you'll have to wait." Out from under his dark cloak he pulled something familiar out that he'd been holding onto, Eries's satchel. "You said you were going to the ship for these."  
  
"My books! You're letting me have them?"  
  
"I've already read through them. I see no harm in letting you have them."  
  
Eries took the heavy bag from him, having to hold with both hands while he had easily managed it with only one. "Thank you," she muttered rather surprised. No one had let her have her books in prison before; it'd usually been a fight to get them back after being released. "Did you really read all of these in the last few days?" she asked.  
  
Folken smirked. "I've read many of them before. They're older books, much of that knowledge has long been outdated."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Zaibach's knowledge far surpasses what those philosophers and scholars scribbled upon those pages. Though I do admit there is some interesting theory contained in some of them. But it's nothing compared to what Zaibach has learned. If you'd like I could lend you some books from my own collection."  
  
"You'd do that?"  
  
"With knowledge comes understanding, princess. You should understand Zaibach is not looking for war, but for peace. Perhaps, when you return, you'll be able to explain that to your father."  
  
"I prefer to draw my own conclusions," Eries said defiantly. "I don't believe my books are so outdated I should toss their ideas aside. And I do not believe that the world will be made peaceful by the construction of metal arms."  
  
"Vicious." Folken's lips curled upward in a feral grin. "You should find them more fascinating than children's picture books at least. Tales of knights and dragons tend to do less for the mind than the principles of science."  
  
A blush crept up on Eries's cheeks thinking of the book Millerna had lent her for the trip. "That's my little sister's," she explained.  
  
"How old is she?" he asked.  
  
"Nine years," Eries said. "And I have an older sister as well."  
  
"Marlene?" he asked and she nodded. "And your little sister's Millerna. They both have faces like porcelain and golden curls in their hair."  
  
"Yes, have you've met them before? I don't ever remember seeing you at the palace, but I'm away so much."  
  
"No, I haven't met them," he said quickly. "But I've heard about all the daughters of King Aston. Their beauty is legendary across Gaea."  
  
A new blush crept over the old one and Eries wondered why. "I don't see them much anymore since I'm always visiting other kingdoms. It's strange, we fight when I'm home, but I always miss them while I'm away."  
  
Folken's eyes softened and he gazed, lost in his own thoughts, at the floor.  
  
Eries watched him curiously. "Do you think I could write to them? Let them know I'm okay?"  
  
Folken looked up from the floor. "I'll see if I can arrange it. Of course, anything you write will be read by Zaibach before it is sent out."  
  
"I would expect that," Eries said looking up at the tall man. She wondered how old he was. It was hard to tell. There was hardness, coldness to his looks, but when he had let down his guard and let his eyes soften he could have been as young as Marlene. Eries guessed he was a good four to eight years older than she. "Do you have any little brothers or sisters?"  
  
"No, not anymore," he said. "But I used to have a little brother."  
  
"I'm sorry. Did he die?"  
  
Folken's eyes shifted back upon her, cold and hard.  
  
"Sorry," she apologized. "You're the one questioning me. I'll try to remember that."  
  
Folken left soon after and Eries congratulated herself on her small victory. She'd managed to steer the conversation away from what she was doing in the hanger. And fluster her questioner at the same time. It was all a game. A delicate struggle for power over the other played in diplomatic world. And Eries had too much at stake to lose.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Every day for the next month and a half Folken stopped by at first to question her, but the topic always wandered away from her spying. And now he barely bothered to ask her questions anymore. Instead, they'd discuss whatever book she happened to be reading at the time, or some of the technology she'd seen on her first day in the floating fortress. He stayed a little longer every time, their conversations carrying them away for hours drifting from topic to topic. He was astoundingly smart and talked over Eries's head quite often. But she found him to be patient about re-explaining things. And fascinating once he got started.  
  
She looked forward to his visits. And though they talked more and more freely she still had to keep what she said in check. She was winning the game. But it would foolish to let her guard down.  
  
"So how did you loose your arm?" Eries asked. She slid over on the cot and let him sit down. "They didn't cut it off just to put the metal one on, did they?"  
  
"No," Folken laughed. "I lost it when I was fifteen; it got torn off by a dragon."  
  
Eries cringed. "Was it hard to learn to use the metal one?" He'd pushed his cloak to the side and let her examine the arm and rub her palm against the clawed fingers.  
  
"Not really," Folken said. "I never lost the sense of my old arm being there. And that's essential to using a prosthetic limb like this. It's always felt like my old arm, even if it isn't. But there are still things I can't do with it that I did before."  
  
"Like?"  
  
"Holding onto things is very hard. I have to watch what my hand is doing because I can't feel that I've gotten a grip on what I'm trying to pick up."  
  
"If you don't watch it does it wander around on it's own?" Eries's eyes sparkled mischievously.  
  
"No," Folken chuckled. "It acts, for the most part, like a regular arm. I feel it's presence, but it doesn't feel anything. So it's been an adjustment for me since I was right handed."  
  
"I bet you can't use a sword anymore," Eries said looking down at the hilt of the blade he carried.  
  
"I could use my left hand, but I don't swordfight anymore."  
  
"So the sword is just for decoration, then?"  
  
"I only use it when I absolutely have to," Folken said. "Which isn't very often."  
  
"Did you used to fight a lot? Before you lost your arm."  
  
He nodded. "But I gave up that whole way of life long ago. When I lost my arm I abstained from my old violent way of life. That life was wrong, the things I did were wrong. So cut myself off completely from my old life. Cut off the hand that was causing me to sin."  
  
"I thought you said a dragon tore it off?"  
  
"It did. It was just a symbolic action for me as well. Loosing my arm brought me to Zaibach, and Emperor Dornkirk woke up my way of thinking. I gave up the violent way of life. I didn't want to use my hands for war anymore."  
  
"So your new arm is a pacifist," Eries concluded.  
  
"Something like that. I used to accept that everything lived to slaughter another. That man was destined for death and war." He looked down at her capturing her eyes in his own. "But we don't have to follow that thread of fate. Zaibach's technology will help usher in a new era free of war."  
  
Eries gazed up at him. "Zaibach's technology? All that stuff I read in your books?"  
  
"Yes, but we still have a long way go in our knowledge. Someday we will learn how to control and change the fate of man."  
  
"I always thought everyone controlled their own fate," Eries said.  
  
"There is so much of it we can't control," Folken said. "Did you control the color of your eyes or hair? Or the year and season in which you were born? Or that you were born a girl? Or the fact that you are part of the royal family of Asturia?"  
  
"I suppose not."  
  
"There is so much we cannot control by ourselves. But why should we accept our fates? We should be the masters of our own destinies. Break man free of the destiny of war. Break free of the destiny of hurt and death and pain. And Zaibach will be the ones to do it. Zaibach will bring peace to Gaea."  
  
Eries clasped her hands in her lap. "It sounds wonderful," she said quietly.  
  
Folken stood up and stretched. "I've been here far too long today and I have much to do yet. Sleep well, princess."  
  
Eries didn't watch him go. "Control my own destiny," she whispered. "And be free of pain." Eries flopped back on the cot and smiled. "Amazing. Folken, you are amazing."  
  



	5. In Defiance of Gods

Chapter 5: In Defiance of Gods  
  
Eries wondered if King Aston planned to leave her in the jail cell forever. Four months had passed since her arrest and she had not heard a thing from Asturia. Not even a letter from her sisters, though she'd sent a few awkward ones in their direction. She wondered if she would mind staying in her jail cell forever. The tiny space felt more like home than the palace in Asturia ever did.  
  
Time passed quickly when Folken came to visit. And when he wasn't there it crawled along at snails pace as she dreamed about him. About talking over a million things with him. About telling him her dirty little secrets and finding he accepted her. And the dreams didn't all come while sleeping. When the guard arrived and broke the cloud of her thoughts the dreams burned her cheeks.  
  
But her dreams did not cease no matter how embarrassed she became when he came to questioner. In a sleeping dream, the night before, she had kissed him. Touched her lips to warmth of his mouth, felt his arms come up across her back and hold her tight. In the dream it had been so nice, but when he showed up bringing her meal with him she'd wanted to crawl under the cot in humiliation. She always felt like those eyes could see through her and read her thoughts.  
  
"You've gotten a letter," Folken said, handing her a scrap of parchment. "From your little sister."  
  
"I suppose you've already read it," Eries said.  
  
"I'm sorry. Standard procedure."  
  
Eries read it out loud to ward off an awkward silence.  
  
  
~ Dear Eries,  
  
How are you? I am good. I miss you. Much has happened while you're away. I hope you're having fun. Marlene is gone. I miss her. I miss you. She married the Duke of the Dutch e Afraid. I hope she's happy. Allen, the Knight (you remember him?), is gone too. He's guarding the boarder by Fanelia. I remember Fanelia, you didn't get to go that time, but it was nice. When you're done having fun come home soon. I miss you.  
  
~Millerna Sara Aston  
  
  
Eries read the letter again silently chewing her bottom lip. Marlene was married? Eries deciphered Millerna's 'Dutch e Afraid" to mean the kingdom of Fried. A large twinge of guilt fell into the pit of Eries's stomach.  
  
"I have more good news from Asturia," Folken said. "Your father's going to be here tomorrow, and you'll be free to go."  
  
Eries did not smile. "He's coming here himself?"  
  
"Yes, and Zaibach and Asturia have formed a new alliance," Folken continued.  
  
Eries stared at him.  
  
"Since our kingdoms are friends now you don't have to stay in this cell any longer," Folken said. "So you'll get your own nice quarters for tonight. Complete with bath. And we'll bring you some new clothes too."  
  
Eries sniffed her clothes. She did smell a more than a bit raunchy. Four months without a bath or a change of clothes could do that. But she hadn't felt overly greasy and dirty until Folken mentioned the bath to her. She must look an awful fright.  
  
Folken escorted her himself down the metal corridors to a large room that was furnished the most comfortable bed Eries had seen in ages and a bathroom containing and actual bathtub.  
  
She glanced in the mirror as she filled the tub up with water. Her pale hair fell in thin wisps down into her face and over her eyes, around her neck, and far past her shoulders. It looked like she was trying to hide behind her hair. Her clothes itched beyond all belief, and were dirty and frayed around the edges. She looked downright awful.  
  
Quickly she turned from the mirror, shed her clothes and slipped into the bath. The water was cold, but grew comfortable the longer she stayed and scrubbed away the months of grime. It felt so good she didn't want to get out, and found that the pads of her fingers and toes had wrinkled by the time she finally forced herself to emerge.  
  
There were some clean clothes sitting in the room and Eries was thankful that Zaibach's style was high collars and long sleeves or she would have had to put on her old clothes and she would have just as soon preferred to burn them. The dress looked like a mangled military uniform made of leather and vinyl, and the neckline swooped uncomfortably low showing off the top of her cleavage. It made Eries feel rather uncomfortable but she sleeked her hair away from her face and behind her gold covered ears so only a few ornery strands fell into her face.  
  
Considering herself in the mirror once again she decided she looked presentable. Maybe even ready to meet King Aston. Eries stared at her reflection for a long time with that thought dominating her brain. She'd have to leave tomorrow. Say goodbye to Folken who'd been so kind to her and return to King Aston. Tears welled up in her eyes and a stray one slipped down her face.  
  
"Eries Hime?" Folken's deep voice called her. She wondered if he had been waiting in the other room the whole time.  
  
He didn't say anything when she emerged. Just looked at her quietly and she looked at the floor trying to hide her tears and escape Folken's silent stare. She sat down upon the bed sinking into its soft comfort; it'd been a long time since she'd felt a bed that soft. Folken continued to stare at her.  
  
"Is there a problem?" she asked quietly.  
  
"I hardly recognized you," he said. "Thought I got the wrong room."  
  
Eries sniffed back her tears as he came to sit next to her.  
  
"Are you alright?" he asked, realizing she was crying.  
  
"I don't want to go home," she said. "I don't want to go with King Aston tomorrow."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"He's going to be mad at me," Eries confessed. "I'm scared."  
  
Folken's arms came up around her holding her tightly. Eries trembled from the tears and from the pleasure of being held. She couldn't remember the last time someone had held her like that. It felt so incredibly good to be held.  
  
"Don't worry. I'll be there when you get sent off," Folken said. "I'll make sure he's not mad when he leaves."  
  
"Can I stay here in Zaibach?" Eries asked.  
  
He was silent for a long time. "No," he finally said. "It's part of the bargain that you be returned."  
  
"I don't want to go. He beats me," Eries whimpered. "He's tried to kill me."  
  
Folken's hands slid up to her shoulders and he held her even tighter. "Eries."  
  
"I don't want to do home. I don't want to return to that. You've been so kind to me. No one has ever been that kind to me unless they have to. And I know you didn't have to." Eries pressed herself into his chest. "Don't make me go home."  
  
"Remember what I said about fate, Eries? How we shouldn't accept them?" Eries nodded. "You must take charge of your own fate. Break free of the thread that you're on."  
  
"How am I suppose to do that?" She looked up at him.  
  
"Well, I could always just crush his throat," Folken muttered. "But that'd probably strain relations between Zaibach and Asturia again."  
  
"Then I'd have to come visit you in prison." She smiled through her tears.  
  
"You'll have to stand up to him, Eries. Our technology can't change fate yet. So you'll have to change your own. Stand up to him. I think you're more powerful than you realize. King Aston needs you. You're essential to his success."  
  
Eries looked up at Folken. His long face, the purple tattoos, the steel blue hair. He looked so intimidating at first. Eyes were so cold at times, but there was only compassion in them now. Eries leaned up drawing her face to his and kissed his lips.   
  
Folken stood up with a start, nearly tripping over his cloak as he backed away. Eries rose to her feet as well. His arms were no longer around her, they were hidden beneath his black cloak.  
  
"I think," he said slowly. "I think there's been a misunderstanding."  
  
Eries watched him as he backed farther across the room.  
  
"You're a very nice girl," Folken said. "And I didn't mean to lead you on to thinking there was anything happening here. But you're a child."  
  
"I'm fifteen," Eries said.  
  
"That's very young. Too young to get messed up with a guy like me." He turned quickly and left the room before she could say anything.  
  
Eries stared after him as he hastily departed the room.  
  
"Stupid," she told herself. "He sees you as a little kid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid."  
  
She sighed but did not cry. "Don't be foolish now, you have more important matters to take control of tomorrow. You have to stand up to Aston tomorrow. If you don't make your life better who will?" She crouched on the floor hugging her knees to her chest. "I don't know if I can do this."  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Folken was there when Aston arrived with his personal guards to collect her, but his eyes were as cold and impersonal as when she first saw him. When he did look at her, there was no hint of the warmth she'd seen only one day earlier. He simply said farewell and disappeared back into the corridors of the floating fortress. But he had kept his word. King Aston was in jovial mood while aboard the floating fortress.  
  
Eries walked at King Aston's side through the leviship to his personal study. The guards were dismissed and Aston turned to face her. She must have grown quite a lot over the past months because he didn't stand as tall above her as before.  
  
"Didn't I say not to cause trouble?" he said roughly, no hint of jovial mood left in his voice.  
  
Eries turned her eyes to ice and met his glare unflinching. "What are you so unhappy about? Asturia and Zaibach are closer allies now."  
  
His hand smacked her hard across the face, but she didn't fall back.  
  
"Don't hit me!" Eries said sternly. "I'm not a little child anymore, King Aston. You can't push me around, because I won't sit silently taking your abuse anymore. If you want me to continue being your ambassador, your spy, then you'd better treat me right. Otherwise, I'm sure I could find another kingdom that could use my abilities and information."  
  
"Malicious little cretin," Aston growled. "You think you can threaten me? Don't you know who you're talking too?"  
  
"Yes, I do," Eries said. "You're a wicked and stupid man who's been given a lot of power. More than he deserves."  
  
Her words were met again by his fist striking her on the lower jaw. "Bitch!" He grabbed her shoulders and thrust her against the wall. "How dare you talk to me that way? I've put up with that attitude of yours for long enough. It's time you learned some respect."  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Eries lay on the floor where she'd eventually fallen. Unable to move because she'd fought back and made the beating worse. But she did not cry.   
  
"Folken," she whispered to the empty room. "I wanted to stay with you. I wanted you to take me away from all this."  
  
The leviship was on its way back to Asturia. Leaving behind Folken. Leaving behind the technology of Zaibach. Leaving behind her refuge of safety and comfort. But she brought with her a dream for the future and small spark of defiance. So she did not cry.  
  
  
  
*_* Authors Notes: The only problem with the way I wrote this story is that we only get to hear what Eries is thinking. (Which I did on purpose so it really isn't a problem.) You just have a read a little deeper to get what's really going on. Last chapter Eries thinks she's winning the little negotiations game, but what's really happened is that Folken's made her think in a 'Zaibach' sort of way.  
The 'Dutch e Afraid' was my own initial misunderstanding so I thought I'd include it in Millerna's letter.  
Next chapter we're into the series and I get to have soooo much fun with Eries. Mwa ha ha. It's a short chapter, but it's a great one for threading Eries into the plot. Wheee!!!  



	6. Rat's Throne

Chapter 6: Rat's Throne  
  
With cold eyes Eries stared at the dark man now kneeling before King Aston. It had been nearly six years since she had first met him, Folken, now Strategos of Zaibach. He didn't seem to have changed much since then, except in title. Folken was still the tall, grim and intimidating man he was before. Even bowing before Aston it was obvious who was in control. His words were deep and seductive as gee spoke of a Fanelian attack on Zaibach and a king who was ruthless and merciless.  
  
Folken was lying. Eyes usually as cold as hers were too warm and empathetic for his words to convince one who knew him.  
  
Eries stood beside the man she called Father as he nodded, slowly considering what Zaibach had to say. Whether King Aston believed Folken or not was inconsequential, Zaibach was their ally and the words would be taken as the truth.  
  
The other officials were being convinced. Folken had a gift for getting what he wanted, and his words were eloquent and seducing. She took in his voice, his sight. It was good to see him again, but he didn't look at her and the changes she'd since ensued upon her life. No longer hiding behind her pale locks, she was a tall and beautiful woman. She no longer spouted off her mouth and had even repaired the damaged caused in her youth with Daedalus. The bruises, the beatings, still came, though not as often nor as bad as six years ago.  
  
She'd learned when to back down to King Aston. And when to stand up to him. His fist was met with defiance now. Not tears.  
  
It was because of him. He'd seduced her thoughts to his ideals long ago. If only she could seduce him back and once again find the warmth beneath his cold exterior.  
  
A palace guard bowed low before King Aston. "Sire, Sir Allen Schezar arrives at the palace; he has brought the Fanelian King to Asturia."   
  
Allen? Eries frowned at the name. What was he doing back in Palas?  
  
"Lord Folken, you may retreat to my study until Allen arrives," Aston said. "My daughter shall accompany you."  
  
Folken rose, his eyes resting upon Eries as she approached. It was not a warm stare, and she returned it.  
  
Aston saw the cold looks in their eyes. "Do you like her?" he whispered as they passed by the throne. "I'll give her to you."  
  
Folken glanced between them. "I doubt she would find life aboard the Vione acceptable."  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Eries shut the door to the study behind them. She tried not to laugh at Aston's odd offer. He'd meant it as an insult to her and Zaibach who was gaining control over Asturia. Aston didn't realize where her heart stood on the Strategos of Zaibach. But it hadn't come as a surprise that Folken had refused the offer.  
  
"You know, if we married now, and King Aston died, you would become the king of Asturia," she told Folken. "If Millerna marries Dryden first King Aston will give them the throne."  
  
"I have no interest in ruling Asturia."  
  
"Yes you do. You just knelt before King Aston and controlled the entire kingdom. Besides, I have an interest in ruling Asturia," Eries said. "King Aston does not want me to inherit the crown. He'd do anything to keep it away from me. It is only because Millerna is his daughter that he gives her the throne."  
  
"What do you mean 'Millerna is his daughter'?"  
  
"King Aston is not my father. Thank the gods," Eries said. "He looks with favor upon his real daughter, but I would make a better ruler. I'd make a better ruler than even King Aston. I handle over half the affairs in Asturia anyway."  
  
Folken walked to the window and stared out over the city. "I admit I prefer your way of talking. You don't gloss over the truth and aren't blinded by lies."  
  
"Soon we won't have to deal with King Aston," Eries said quietly. "Even without you I will gain control of Asturia. I have it all planned out." Eries brought forth a tiny bottle from the pocket of her gown.  
  
Folken turned his eyes upon the bottle. She held it out for him to take, but pulled it back as he reached for it forcing Folken to draw nearer to her.  
  
Stretching up, she kissed his lips. Lips as cold and emotionless as his mechanical arm. Frustrated, she pulled away and gave the vial to him.  
  
"What it is?" He asked it like her kiss had never happened.  
  
"Rat poison," Eries replied. "For a big rat on the throne of Asturia. If I give it to him a little bit at a time no one will suspect a thing. He'll just get sick and die. And they won't be able to trace the poison."  
  
Folken handed it back shaking his head.  
  
Eries grinned. "You think I'm cold? That I'm wicked?"  
  
"I don't think anything of you."  
  
"You said I should stand up to him."  
  
"That's not quite what I meant."  
  
"You bring peace your way and I'll bring it mine."  
  
He stared at her, his face unreadable.  
  
Her smile fell away. "Aston is cold. He allows so many to suffer in Asturia and turns a blind eye to the travesties of other kingdoms. Gaea's people are in pain and it's because of Aston. It's time for a new leader."  
  
"And when he's dead, will you poison your little sister as well?"  
  
Eries looked at the bottle in her hand. "No," she whispered. "No, I don't want Millerna to get hurt. If Father dies before she marries I might still be able to take the throne. If not..." She looked back up at Folken her eyes once again as cold as his. "...at least he'll be dead."  
  



	7. The Playboy and the Princess

Chapter 7: The Playboy and the Princess  
  
Eries forced herself to sit with all the poise and grace her inner turmoil would allow as she listened to the gentle music floating through the dining hall and tried hard to ignore the fact there was a massive guymelef sitting at one end of the table. To any observer she appeared calm and collected but her mind raced again and again to the poison that sat in her room, the seal still unbroken. It was one thing to talk about killing someone; it was a little more difficult to actually do it.  
  
King Aston sat at the far end of the table focusing most of his conversation upon Meiden since the young Fanelian king seemed more interested in studying the tablecloth and fingering the stem of his goblet than making polite conversation. It was truly an odd gathering of people for the meal considering Eries herself rarely ate in the presence of King Aston.  
  
Sitting directly across from Eries was an exotic looking girl with short brown hair and shockingly short skirt. Next to her was Allen Schezar, who Aston had once sworn never to let back in Palas or near any of his daughters. Or for that matter any woman again. His natural charm didn't seem to have been dampered one bit after his time in the swamp. Both Millerna and the foreign girl were swooning and casting glances at him all during the meal. Millerna openly flirted with him all night, tossing the fact that she was already engaged to Dryden Fassa and that her fiancés father, Meiden, was seated next to her.  
  
Eries had to work hard to suppress a laugh when she saw what her little sister had chosen to dress the girl in. One of Marlene's old dresses, and Eries knew for a fact that it was one of Allen's favorites. Millerna's ignorance of their sister's relationship was astounding. And her infatuation with the knight infuriating.  
  
"Ah, Escaflowne, it's beauty is almost enough to take your breath away," Aston said.  
  
"Almost as lovely as maladies Millerna and Eries," Meiden said.  
  
Millerna laughed, and Eries tried not to roll her eyes. She only appreciated the fact that Millerna was seated between her and Meiden. He'd always made Eries uncomfortable and the strong smell of spice and perfume that seemed to hover around his body were almost overwhelming to her sensitive nose.  
  
She gazed somberly across the table letting her eyes rest upon the Knight Caeli. Allen met her cold look with his own guilty glance.   
  
Stay away from Millerna; she tried to tell him. You'll only hurt her and yourself.  
  
Allen turned his blue eyes away from her and didn't look at her again for the rest of the meal.  
  
"You didn't go to the bazaar with me this morning, Allen" Millerna said. "You should come to my quarters later so we can talk."  
  
Eries's insides squeezed together at Millerna's words picturing another Chid running around the castle in nine months. "Allen, Millerna has been engaged to Meiden's eldest son," Eries said.  
  
"Sister!" Millerna cried, flying to her feet.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, but that was what you were going to talk about, right?" Eries didn't bother to make her tone match her words.  
  
Millerna pouted and sat back down. "I haven't given my consent yet."  
  
Eries mentally rolled her eyes. Millerna was such a child. Only thinking about herself, and never about the good of the people. Allen wouldn't make a good king; even if Eries lost the throne to Millerna she wouldn't give it over to Allen. She'd have to have a talk with him later.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
The only sound that Eries made that night in her fury was slamming of her bedroom door. Her shoes hadn't even sounded as she fled away from Knight Caeli before her tongue took her places she might regret. Talking to that man was like talking to the wall. How could she reason with him when he wouldn't even acknowledge the truth?  
  
Millerna would end up like Marlene and there would be another Chid. Another Eries.  
  
And she couldn't forgive him for that.  
  
Marlene had been old enough to make her own choice, but what choice did Chid have? Years ago Eries had returned to Fried to see Marlene and her infant son. She'd known as soon as she saw the boy that Allen was his father. There was no way he could have been Duke Fried's.  
  
The duke knew it as well and it made him tough on the boy telling him that he would never be a good duke if he didn't give up his childish ways. Eries saw her own life playing out again. A childhood marred by pain, cut short by the desire for justice. A father figure consumed with jealousy.  
  
Eries sat down upon the edge of her bed and looked out over the dark city. There was something very different about Mohad from Grava, though. Marlene said Mohad loved Chid or wanted to love him. Grava would prefer her dead.  
  
The darkness of the city below was interrupted by a small series of bright sparks that drew Eries's attention away from her broodings. Fire. And from the looks of it, being purposely set. What was happening out there? Had Folken spoke the truth? Was the King of Fanelia really as dangerous as he'd made him out to be or was there someone else down there torching the city?  
  
Eries turned on her heels from the scene and ran off to find someone who knew what was happening. She didn't like feeling helpless. She wanted to gain control of something.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Everything had slipped though her fingers. Though Eries had tried to stop her, Millerna had run off after the Knight Caeli. His allure to strong for the young girl.  
  
"You don't understand," Millerna had cried. "I love Allen!"  
  
Eries was shocked. Was that what Millerna believed? Didn't she know the difference between infatuation and love? Someday Allen's little secret would come out. Someday he'd have to tell Millerna that Chid was his son. And then what? Millerna would be devastated. Eries wanted to kill Allen for leading Millerna on like this. But now, Millerna and Allen were in Fried. With that strange girl and the dangerous king. And Asturia's harbor had been occupied by Zaibach. That meant Zaibach was planning something.  
  
"You're letting them attack Fried?" Eries screamed. Her rage had turned full boil inside her, and she would not sit quiet anymore. Let Aston get mad; let him beat her until she couldn't stand. She wasn't going to let him sacrifice Millerna. The girl might have made a foolish decision to run off after Allen, but Eries still felt responsible for the girl even when they were far away from each other.  
  
"I'm not letting them do anything. Zaibach is her own nation," came his gruff reply.  
  
"You're not trying to stop them!"  
  
"There's nothing I can do. The treaty between Zaibach and Asturia must stand," King Aston muttered, not even looking at her as he spoke.  
  
Eries leaned across his desk to get in the face of the despicable man. "Millerna's there! You know she is."  
  
He refused to speak.  
  
Eries sat back in her chair with a small whimper. "She's your daughter," she pleaded. "She's the only daughter you have left."  
  
His eyes finally rose from the desk and for long time he gazed at Eries. "Don't you understand? This isn't about Millerna anymore. I must think of Asturia and her people. Zaibach will attack us if we break the treaty."  
  
"Zaibach would not attack us."  
  
"I'm not willing to take that risk."  
  
"But isn't about the treaty or saving lives, is it? Everything is always about money and protecting your own skin. You don't want to loose Zaibach's business."  
  
Aston rose; his anger now ablaze instead of Eries's. He slammed his fist forcefully into the his desk making Eries flinch. That fist was directed at her. "Such talk could be considered treason, Eries. Continue and I'll have you thrown in prison. Zaibach is the one who will attack Fried, not Asturia, and not me."  
  
"You aren't willing to face the truth, are you? You're apathy will destroy Fried and it will destroy Millerna! Why won't you at least save her?"  
  
"I can't!" Aston yelled back. "Now get the hell out of my face!"  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
One flick of her wrist and the seal was off of the poison. It was time. When his malice had only been directed at her she'd held back, she didn't want it to be a purely selfish venture, but now...  
  
Fried. Chid. Millerna. They would all suffer at his hands.  
  
Such a man didn't deserve to live.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
With the meekest face possible Eries returned to King Aston's study. A wine bottle she carried in one hand its' cork already gone.  
  
He looked up again as she entered the room.  
  
"My lord, I must apologize to you. I was wrong." She poured the wine into Aston's empty cup. "I lost my temper and..." Her eyes follow Aston's hand as it brought the wine to his lips.  
  
"And..." he prodded.  
  
"And I understand we cannot jeopardize Asturia's future. Not even for Millerna."  
  
Aston took a long sip of the wine and Eries smiled inside. It had begun.  
  
"But it doesn't mean I don't care about Millerna," she continued.  
  
"I'm worried about her too, Eries." He finished off his glass and poured himself another. It was all so easy, but there was still one more thing Eries wanted.  
  
"Let me go to the Zaibach floating fortress," she begged. "I promise not break our treaty. Just let me save Millerna." But her mind was not resting on her little sister anymore. "I'll beg him for mercy. I'd do anything to save her." 


	8. Betrayal and Lies

Chapter 8: Betrayal and Lies  
  
"It's Allen," Eries said. "He's trying to instigate a war between Asturia and Fried so he can overthrow King Aston. When he couldn't take the crown by marriage he decided to do it by force."  
  
Folken gazed coolly at Eries as she struggled to convince him of something they both knew was blatant lie. She fingered the wine glass apprehensively, but didn't drink from it. Wine now made her nervous.  
  
"Are those the lies your father told you to say?" Folken asked.  
  
Eries shook her head. "The words are my own, and they are the truth. If all you want is Fanelia's king you could get it without destroying Fried. Fanelia attacked you, not Fried. He destroyed your energist mine and brought about the attack of his own kingdom. Together with Allen they're plotting to take over Asturia."  
  
"It will not be easy to make Fried believe such words," Folken said. "They have Plactu."  
  
"If I send a messenger to Duke Fried explaining what is taking place..."  
  
"It might not be enough," Folken interrupted. "But do so anyway. I have a ... friend who can take care of the rest."  
  
Eries nodded. "If it works Zaibach may not have to attack Fried. A peaceful world is Zaibach's goal, right?"  
  
He nodded. "However, sometimes peace is made through wars. A small amount of suffering can lead to greater happiness."  
  
"I understand," Eries said. "If you must attack I would ask that you spare my sister and my nephew Chid."  
  
"I'll do everything in my power to see that no harm comes to them. We'll try to get Millerna back to Asturia before any siege may take place."  
  
"Thank you, Folken-sama." Her business was done, but she wasn't ready to leave just yet. She walked over to Folken keeping his gaze in her own. "You would make an excellent king for Asturia," she whispered as she gently pushed by a stray strand of steel blue hair away from his face. "She needs a wise and strong man to lead her." Sinking into Folken's lap she continued. "I need a wise and strong man."  
  
Her lips brushed his, but he made no move to return her affection.  
  
"Strategos." A taunting voice reached her ears. Eries turned to see a young man leaning in the doorway. Water dripped from his uniform and from the ends of silver hair. "I didn't know you had a bitch." He grinned wickedly at them.  
  
"She was just leaving." Folken pushed Eries to her feet. "Did you find Miguel yet?"  
  
"No, damn Fried took him captive." He sat down where Eries had been sitting propping his feet up on the table. He looked back at her. "Leave us, woman."  
  
Eries passed him by feeling the two pairs of cold eyes bearing into her skin. Two very different cold gazes in her back. In the youth's eyes the coldness seemed to stem from a hate deep inside that reflected clearly in his blood red irises. Folken's coldness, she believed, was only a shell; a shell she longed to break with the warmth of her lips and body.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
"What are you doing?" Eries demanded of the passing maid. The girl jumped clutching one hand to her chest and almost dropping the silver platter she carried with the other. Eries grabbed it from her quivering hand before it fell.  
  
"Just taking the king his dinner, my lady," she stammered, backing up with several nervous curtsies.  
  
"In case you had not heard; I am bringing the king his meals now. He's very sick and doesn't need clumsy maids constantly bothering him."  
  
The girl shrank away trying her best to retreat down the hall and away from Eries. "I'm sorry, Hime. It won't happen again." She bobbed up and down in an endless series of curtsies.  
  
"Just go," Eries ordered. The girl curtsied several more times and took off in a hurry down the halls a small sob escaping from her lips.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
A dark demeanor had overtaken Eries's mood ever since returning from the Vione. Folken's continued refusal of her advances was disheartening and the news that Fried had been conquered had only furthered to sour her mood.  
  
Some relief could be found in the fact that Folken had kept his word; this being confirmed by the note received from Dryden Fassa a week ago. Millerna was alive, but it was very unclear where she was going or when she would be back. Even less clear was how she had ended up with Dryden in the first place. At least she was safely in the hands of her betrothed.  
  
Eries poured a few drops from her vial into the wine. Half empty, and the old fool was still clinging to his life. If she could have gotten away with dumping the whole bottle in she certainly would have. But a little at a time was safer.  
  
"What are you doing?" a voice beside her asked. It was Eries's turn to jump.   
  
Meiden stood at her shoulder his eyes resting on the bottle in her hand.  
  
"Just giving the king his medicine," she explained. "The doctor said it's best when mixed with wine."  
  
"Strange, I didn't know you'd talked to any doctors." He pried the bottle from Eries's tightly clutched fingers. "I always thought you didn't like doctors. Didn't trust them."  
  
"I must do what's best for my father."  
  
"But you refuse to be in the same room when the doctors are there. I've always wondered why." He pushed a lock of hair back from Eries's neck. "You know what I think? I think that's poison."  
  
Eries pushed his hand away from her neck and snatched the bottle back. "It's medicine, Meiden. It is his worry over my sister that makes him ill."  
  
Meiden moved closer and Eries backed against the wall. He held the wine glass up to her lips. "Then drink some."  
  
He laughed at Eries's hesitation.  
  
"I'm willing to keep this our little secret, Hime."  
  
"It's medicine," Eries insisted weakly.  
  
"You know, my son, Dryden, will make a fine king someday. In fact, I can only think of one person who would be better at the job." His withered hands purposefully fingered the broach at the base of Eries's neck. "But I couldn't be made king unless I, myself, married into the royal family."  
  
She pulled away in disgust, but Meiden grabbed her arm.  
  
"Or you can have a rope put round that lovely neck of yours. It's your choice."  
  
She slapped his hand away. Red lines streaked the back of his hand. He looked startled. Meiden didn't know the truth about everything; he didn't know this princess had literal claws.  
  
"If you dare speak one word of this to anyone I'll tell Allen-san that you were the one who kidnapped his sister," Eries hissed.  
  
"That's a lie!" He cradled his bleeding hand.  
  
"Who do you think he'll believe? You'll be dead before you can speak on word in your own defense. They'll debate for ages before they hang me."  
  
"Allen's not here, Hime."  
  
"He'll be back. Dryden said he's still alive. He'll come back to Asturia."  
  
Meiden glared at Eries, trying to tell if she was bluffing or not. He finally sighed and handed the platter back to Eries. "You'd better take the king his dinner." 


	9. Treason

Chapter 9: Treason  
  
Eries waited all alone in the graveyard using the rare moment of solitude to adorn her mother's and her sister's graves with flowers. For over an hour she'd stood amongst the moss-covered headstones that marked each burial plot scanning the skies and waiting for her solitude to be broken. The sun sank lower and lower in the sky foretelling the coming night and her return to palace where Meiden was surely waiting for her.  
  
The man had become stalker constantly standing a few paces away wherever she went. His presence a reminder that his offer was still available and her life lay in his hands should she slip-up under his intense scrutiny. The cemetery was the one place she could go to escape his gaze. However, this evening's visit was not about dead family members. Eries was waiting for someone.  
  
A strong wind raged suddenly across the land, whipping her skirt and hair wildly about. From out of nowhere two massive guymelefs appeared throwing back their cloaks of invisibility.  
  
Eries did not run. She stayed firmly planted on the ground and watched as one giant metal hand gently lowered a black-cloaked figure to the ground.  
  
"Where is the dragon?" Folken demanded.  
  
Eries slapped him across the face, but he hardly seemed to notice. "Where's my sister, Folken? You promised."  
  
The guymelefs opened with simultaneous puffs of steam and their twin pilots lept out. They were women. Catwomen.  
  
"Naria, Eryia, stay back," Folken ordered. Together they crouched below the guymelefs, two pairs of shining eyes staring menacingly at Eries.  
  
"Your sister is still alive. Where is the dragon, Hime?" Folken demanded again.  
  
"I don't know. Find the Crusade - your dragon should be with them."  
  
"He's not, and I have reason to believe he's in Asturia. Eries, the ideal future is at hand, but Zaibach needs the dragon and the girl from the Mystic Moon."  
  
"The Mystic Moon?" Eries shook her head unsure of what he was talking about. "If they were in Asturia, Folken, I would gladly hand them over to you."  
  
"If you will not give them to me now Zaibach will come and take them by force."  
  
"You promised Asturia would be left alone," Eries said hotly.  
  
"It will be - if you cooperate. Why do you resist?"  
  
"Why do you resist me?" She took hold of the folds of his black cloak. "Why won't you believe me?"  
  
"Lies come too easily to your tongue. Much like your father's."  
  
"He is not my father!" She buried her face into his cloak. "And I speak the truth. I'd do anything to help you, Folken. We're both looking to make a better world."  
  
An arm, a real arm, came up around her shoulders. "If they aren't here now, they will be soon. Tell me, Hime, when will be the best time for us to attack? When will there be the least resistance so the least number of lives are lost?"  
  
Her mind had to work hard to find his answer distracted by the comfort of Folken's arm around her. "When Millerna and Dryden return there might be a wedding. Everyone in the city will be there and distracted by the ceremonies. An attack will be the least thing they'd expect. You should be able to quickly find what you want and get out."  
  
He let go of her shoulders.  
  
"Folken?" Eries pleaded. "People are going to get hurt, aren't they?"  
  
He didn't answer her and tears began to well up in Eries's eyes.  
  
"I can't stay here," she whispered. "This makes me a traitor."  
  
"Zaibach and Asturia are allies; for now."  
  
Trembling she fell to her knees at his feet. "Take me with you, Folken, please!"  
  
He knelt beside her. "If we attack during the wedding it will be taken as an ill omen. The people will want you to be their queen."  
  
Eries looked up into his dark eyes. "I don't deserve to be queen."  
  
Folken rose back to stand tall above her. "You will make a good queen, Eries. This is best for your people and this is best for Gaea."  
  
"I can't do this anymore! Let me go with you," Eries begged.  
  
He walked away. He walked away from her and towards the waiting women and their guymelefs.  
  
"I love you!" Eries cried to his back.  
  
That stopped Folken. "You will become queen, Eries. And that, I believe, is all you really want."  
  
He boarded the outstretched hand of the guymelef; not even turning to look at her as they all disappeared from sight.  
  
The wind's whipped up once again as they departed and Eries looked up to sky trying to see what could not be seen. There was no guymelef above her, but there was a leviship sailing silently above the cemetery towards Asturia.  
  
Could it be? The Crusade?  
  
Eries climbed to her feet brushing her skirt smooth and looked to the sky again. It was the Crusade! Millerna was coming home at last.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Eries peered out the coach window as they neared the docking platform. Millerna was there with Dryden at her side. The crew of the Crusade was unloading the ship, but there was no sign of the Fanelian king or Allen Schezar.  
  
Eries emerged from the cabin. Both sisters stood frozen, each taking the sight of the other in. Millerna had lost weight, and her clothes were worn, but she seemed otherwise intact.  
  
A rip was torn down the conscious of Eries's soul. She wanted to run to Millerna and bridge the gap they'd formed when parting last, but her mind told her she couldn't. She'd sold her little sister out and now Zaibach would come on her wedding day.  
  
Dryden approached, bringing Millerna with him by the hand. "Eries Hime." He bowed low to her and Eries nodded back.  
  
Millerna's tear-filled violet eyes were pounding into Eries like an axe. "Onee-sama," Millerna whispered. "You're crying."  
  
Eries tried to reconstruct her icy wall. "Father is sick, Millerna. He's dying."  
  
Her sister's lower lip quivered as she took in the news. "I'm so sorry, onee-sama. Is it because of me?"  
  
"He's been very worried about you. I've been very worried about you." Eries approached and took her in her arms. Millerna wrapped her arms tightly around Eries's waist. They held each other for a long time the two sisters reunited for one brief moment.  
  
"I'm sorry, onee-sama. I didn't mean to hurt anyone," Millerna sobbed into Eries's chest.  
  
But Eries couldn't say anything. 


	10. A Bitter Draught

Chapter 10: A Bitter Draught  
  
  
There had been a moment's hesitation between the time when the wax was poured on the parchment and when Eries pressed the ring that bore the royal seal into it. Not much of a pause just enough to harden the surface of the wax.  
  
Her delay had not come from the fear of being caught in the deed - she wasn't actually doing anything wrong at the moment since all the kingdoms allied to Asturia were to receive a proclamation of the wedding. And Zaibach had been an ally up until the moment the two guymelefs had dropped from their hangers in the floating fortress.  
  
Nor was it from the guilt of ruining her sister's wedding or subjecting her people to the assault. Millerna did not truly want to marry, and the attack would be a quick one.  
  
No, for the first time it was Folken himself that gave her pause and the memory of him walking away and crying out her declaration of love. Had she cried to Folken the Strategos or to the man she'd met six years ago? Folken: nineteen-year-old sorcerer who'd treated her with unfamiliar kindness.  
  
Somehow, even as the city was crumbling, she'd hoped that Folken's voice would demand her also. That one of the pilots would should out the liquid metal and wrap her up. That Folken would finally rescue her.  
  
But he hadn't. And now he was dead and never would.  
  
As sun began to rise the flames that had eaten at the city were finally extinguished. And as it reached it's pinnacle in the sky Zaibach's floating fortress had been swallowed by the sea.  
  
No one was found alive.  
  
Silent tears slid down her face and dripped into the glass she held in her trembling hands. Slowly she sipped the bitter mixture and wondered what her poison would take like mixed in as well.  
  
~"You will become queen, Eries. And that, I believe, is all you really want."~ Folken's lasts words replayed themselves in her mind an endless echo.  
  
No, that wasn't what she wanted at all. He had understood nothing. Not her duty or her desire. She wanted him even more than sovereignty. She would turn her back on Asturia forever and join Zaibach if only he had loved her back. She had already betrayed her country for him. Little did it matter; Folken was dead taking with him Eries' dream of the future. What did it matter if she became queen? It would only further the destruction of Asturia and Gaea.  
  
They had shared a singe desire to make Gaea better. Instead it was worse.   
  
Folken had always said everything that was happening was for the good of the world. That through this war there would be peace. She'd never doubted before.  
  
War would come soon, and more of her people would fall and die for the names of Aston and Asturia.  
  
It wasn't right that they should die for her. Not even a member of the royal family. Not even human. With her tail and ears gone she was hardly even beast anymore. Beneath her fancy clothes and title she was nothing.   
  
The door swung open behind her and without looking she knew it was Meiden.   
  
"How is the king doing?" he asked.  
  
Eries looked to the man who lay before her. Though she had done nothing to taint his drink since Millerna had returned Aston looked worse than before.  
  
"He's dying," Eries said. "But he only sleeps now."  
  
At this Aston opened his eyes. "Not even that." Turning his head he looked out to window at his ruined kingdom. "Zaibach, why? We were allies."  
  
Eries thought but she said nothing.  
  
"Give me wine."  
  
Eries poured him a glass but Meiden's hand came down upon her own. "Stop, Hime."  
  
Aston glared sourly at him. "What's the matter, Meiden?"  
  
"My Lord Aston, I'm afraid I have learned some rather distressing facts about your daughter."  
  
Eries looked up at Meiden wondering if he'd be foolish enough to speak now that there was nothing in the wine.  
  
"Your daughter," he continued. "Eries Hime has been poisoning your wine."  
  
"That's ridiculous," Eries scoffed. "Where did you hear such rubbish?"  
  
"If I'm wrong, Hime, then I'm sure you would have no problem with drinking a glass yourself.  
  
She didn't. Meiden stared in horror as Eries downed the draught in one gulp.  
  
"Go away, Lord Meiden," Aston sighed. "And let me drink in peace."  
  
Meiden bowed stiffly still staring at Eries as if she should die any moment now.   
  
, she silently chided him.   
  
"Can't he find something better to do," Eries muttered.  
  
"We're all looking for someone to blame," Aston said. "It helps ease the pain."  
  
Eries gazed out the window. Asturia was in rubble. Why was she sitting here?   
  
Folken?  
  
Eries glanced down at King Aston. She didn't need Folken to make her dreams come true. She didn't need him to rescue her. She'd already saved herself.  
  
Folken's passing hurt because she had loved him. Yet, he did not return the love and had not for six years. In essence nothing in her life had changed when he perished. She'd lived six years in love with a dream; she could keep on living loving a phantom. So what was sitting here crying for?  
  
"King Aston," Eries said quietly. "Our kingdom is in need of reparations. Give me your permission to go to our allies and bring back relief."  
  
Aston nodded. "Economic sanctions have been imposed on Zaibach, but I foresee war. We must be prepared this time."  
  
"A war with Zaibach." What must be done, she would do. That was the way it had always been. 


	11. Shadows of the Past

Chapter 11: Shadows of the Past  
  
It felt good to be exhausted. It felt good to be exhausted because it felt good to have accomplished something she could be proud of. Her weary limbs, her aching back, her sore feet and burning eyes were all worth it for Asturia had her alliance.  
  
For three straight weeks Eries had represented her kingdom across the four quarters of Gaea gaining sympathy and establishing the bond against Zaibach. It'd taken almost everything out of her to successfully bribe, beg, charm, threaten and implore the leaders of the nations. Those who hadn't joined had been at least willing to send relief since they depended on Asturia for their trade.  
  
She took pride in what she had done and in a strange way she felt Folken would have been proud of her, too.  
  
Now back in Asturia, in Palas, in her own bedroom she was able to take a moment to reflect on everything that was happening.  
  
Her task had been completed just in time for the first battle had already been fought in Asturia's own Rampart. Zaibach must have gotten wind of forming alliance against them and decided to make the first move before they could get organized. The tactic had worked - the outpost was little more than ash now. Eries had received word of the assault while in Ezgardia and been immediately summoned home. The messenger told her it was the urging of a Zaibach defector that had stirred the hearts of her people to war. She'd immediately thought of Folken, and immediately chastised herself. Folken was dead, she needed to stop dreaming.  
  
Eries rubbed her palms against her forehead frustrated. Even now she thought on him. Why couldn't she stop? Why during the most important meetings of her life did her mind inevitably drift to Folken?  
  
With a bit of self-directed anger she yanked off her boots and tossed them across the room hearing them thunk one after the other against the wall and onto the floor. She stretched her toes and ankles glad to finally have them free of the leather encasing and reached around to start unlacing the back of her dress. The task proved difficult at the moment though she'd done it ten thousand times. No handmaid had ever tied or untied her corset, but her unresponsive hands were only making the knots worse.  
  
Finally, out of frustration she bore her claws and sliced the laces apart with one swift stroke fully aware that she would be hampered with having to sew it back together in the morning. Her sharp nails ripped straight through the cloth and into her skin. Distraught at her own impatience and carelessness she let out a small cry somewhere between a sob and laugh.  
  
What a fool! For a moment she'd actually begun thinking once again that she'd be a good queen; after all convincing kingdoms to go to war for your own was not an easy task. Yet here she sat now - a foolish little beastgirl not even able to undress without hurting herself.  
  
She striped the rest of her dress and stared down at the white tufts of fur on her wrists. They itched madly after being kept stifled beneath her sleeves for so long. The fur on her ankles and shoulders was no less bothersome. Up her arms to her neck and down her legs to her shins ran speckles of black spots joined with white scars from her not so distant childhood. She could feel the blood trickling down her back, down her spine to the place where a tail had once emerged from her backside. Eries clamped her hands over her ears feeling the cold metal that bound them and she remembered ...  
  
For fifteen years she'd tried to forget that night and now the memories, those horrid memories come flooding back.  
  
"I don't want to remember," Eries cried unable to stop it. She buried her face into the darkness of her hands trying to block the images from her mind, but it was feelings that came back the strongest and the feelings that were the worst.  
  
King Aston's arms. The first thing she could recall. He'd never held her before or since, but it'd felt better than anything she'd ever known. She snuggled against him and purred into his shoulder. She had felt safe, as he'd carried deep into the castle. For a moment she'd even believed he'd cared about her. That he might even love her.  
  
It was a fantasy soon shattered when he'd handed her to the strange men called doctors, claimed they would make her better, and left. Eries hoped he'd heard her screams that night; she hoped it haunted him. She doubted it did.   
  
Those men, the doctors, had been all business. No comforting or reassuring words for her they'd lain her face down on the table and unable to understand what was going on she'd complied as they strapped her arms and legs to the table and pushed her nightgown up her back.  
  
Someone had given her a piece of metal to bite down upon as another secured a band at the base of her tail. She could remember the tingling sensation it created and looking up imploringly at one of men seconds before the first cut was made.  
  
"No, no, no," she moaned feeling the pain as strong as it had been back then. "I don't want to remember this." Someone knocked at her door, but she didn't hear it her own screams from the past blocking everything else out.  
  
The bone of her tail was severed at the joint and the silky white rope stained red with her blood was laid beside her on the table. Eries had wailed until her throat was soak and her cheeks were soaked with tears. She'd thrashed and bit at their hands as they tried to hold her still to finish the operation. Another man began snipping away at her ears as the first sewed up the tiny stub left of her tail.  
  
They'd also placed the gold earring upon her ears to cover what their scalpels could not fix. The metal was still hot then and it burned and bound itself permanently to her.  
  
Eries wanted to pass out now the pain had been so intense. For hours after they'd left she'd lain there whimpering until finally the exhaustion dropped her into an uneasy sleep.  
  
She'd woken to find her arms and legs were unbound but covered in her own dried blood that stuck her legs to the table and her eyelashes together. The numbness had a hold of her at first, but when she tried to move the pain instantly returned. For a long time she stayed there, unable to move, in tears and in pain.   
  
After what must have been several days Aston showed up again. He'd ordered her up, forcing her stand despite the pain it caused and to dress in the pretty new gown he had brought with him. There was to be a celebration of his new daughters birth that night and he wanted her there.  
  
With a stern face and menacing eyes he'd given her a warning. "I want you to forget everything that's happened here. Never speak of it or your past to anyone," he demanded. "Not even to Marlene and especially not to Millerna. To her you will be my daughter and her sister. You are a beastgirl no more."  
  
Everything and nothing had changed that night. Her life was suddenly filled with people beyond Mother and Marlene, but she was still alone. Aston had given her an education, a position, a title, and a thousand responsibilities to make her a true princess in everyone's eyes but his own. His heart never changed and his hand was never stilled. She was always a beastgirl to him.  
  
Eries wiped her tears away, once again sitting back in her room her dress clutched to her chest. In her bottom desk drawer was stored the bottle of rat poison. She would not use it anymore. Aston dying now they said; there was no way to stop his sickness. If she used the poison now would mean a quick release from his torment. Let him suffer as he had made her suffer.  
  
She rose back to her feet as the knock at the door came again; this time Eries heard it. But she couldn't even call out to wait before it opened. She clutched her dress tighter against her chest well aware that her fur and spots were showing to whomever should poke their head inside.  
  
"Eries?"  
  
She knew that voice! And she knew the tall figure that followed it into her room.  
  
"Naria?" he asked this time his voice full of confusion.   
  
"Folken?!" She couldn't believe it; her Folken was standing right there before her. Her trembling hands let the dress slip the ground unnoticed by her, but not by him.  
  
"Hime!" Folken's face burned red with embarrassment. "Gomen!" He quickly pulled the door shut again leaving Eries staring in astonished disbelief at the door. 


	12. Little Sister

Chapter 12: Little Sister  
  
Locked in place at the entrance to Folken's laboratory Eries could feel the heat from the hallway's light pounding at her back as it flowed around her body and cast her shadow farther forward into the lab than she herself dared to go. Her shadow, uninhibited by any of the chagrin she felt, boldly stretched down the long walk until if Folken had taken a single step backwards he would have stepped on her head.  
  
As it was he didn't even know she was there or, if he did, was making an excellent job of ignoring her. He worked diligently and quickly on repairing the enormous piece of machinery hung by thick steel cables from the ceiling all the while whistling a sad tune and somehow managing to keep his back to her.  
  
It had been two days now since their brief and awkward reunion. Two days to let a million questions surface in her mind, to think up a world of things she wanted to say to him, ask him, tell him. Two nights to let it all brew knowing he was alive but never being able to talk to him.  
  
That night she had dressed as quickly as she could, reflecting on the blush that had overtaken his face. In one moment she'd seen more emotion, more real emotion, from him than she had in the past six years. Not since their first encounter had he acted like that, letting his emotions go unchecked and uncontrolled. She had smiled about it as she vainly attempted to track him down.  
  
At the time she hadn't even felt embarrassed about her brief moment of nudity, too stunned by his living presence to be modest. Considering the fact that she'd never exposed so much as a forearm to another person since the age of six she found it odd that she hadn't minded.  
  
She did now, though. Too mindful of the fact and no thought at all to what she should say to him. All the things she'd gone over countless times in her head had fled leaving her with nothing but air rushing between her ears. If she only had been able to catch him that night surely she would have talked easily to him. Even the day after it still wouldn't have been this hard. But she hadn't been able to find him that night. And the subsequent days were busy for him as well as her.   
  
Once, only once, she had caught him between the constant barrage of war meetings and lectures and managed to whisper more harshly than she'd intended: "Don't tell anyone." It sounded an absolutely foolish thing to say now and she regretted it terribly. 'Glad your alive' would have had a better ring to it though it took lacked charm. His eyes had widened slightly and his face regained the reddish tinge around his cheekbones. "I wouldn't dream of it, Hime. I'd be hung in a moment if anyone found out I'd barged into the princesses room while she was changing."  
  
"Why did you?" Eries asked, another asinine question that was left unanswered for someone had loudly demanded Folken's presence and he'd hurried off with a lack of formality. Leaving Eries feeling rather bemused by it all once her brain took the time to register the conversation. She'd meant telling about her beastgirl qualities, but apparently that was not how Folken had taken her warning or chosen to remember the incident.  
  
Eries tried to kick herself forward into his lab, but her legs buckled and her foot refused to kick itself. she reprimanded herself. What was she so afraid of? This was about keeping her secret, finding out how he'd escaped, how he'd made it to Asturia, why he'd left Zaibach - a million things but 'them'. He'd already said he didn't love her. Didn't he? She couldn't remember anymore.  
  
"Eries Hime." A strong hand came down on her shoulder and stifling a scream Eries spun around knocking away the hand she expected belonged to Meiden. He was in that habit of sneaking up behind her, just his little way of keeping her on her toes. The merchant would be all over her for snooping on Folken. It wasn't him, much to her relief.  
  
Instead it was Gaddes with his hands in the air like a surrendering prisoner and a look on his face suggesting she'd just tried to take a bite out of him.  
  
"Geez, a little high strung today, aren't we, Hime?"  
  
"You startled me," Eries said and he finally lowered his hands.  
  
"I didn't mean to. Just have message for you from the boss."   
  
"Allen?" He nodded. Enter a new contender for people she did not want to see right now. "What is it?" The whistling had stopped behind her, and she knew Folken was aware of her presence. Perhaps he'd come out to talk and she'd been free of trying to think up an icebreaker.  
  
"He wants to talk to you. Something about a sister."  
  
"Millerna's married, tell him to keep his hands off." Eries cast a glance over her shoulder not really caring what Gaddes thought of it. Folken was indeed looking at them, but he was making no move to approach.  
  
"Millerna? Naw, she's old news, he proposed to Miss Hitomi before we went to Rampart. But she's no longer in Asturia. They think she's gone home."  
  
"Oh, really?" Eries commented totally disinterested as long as Millerna was safe.  
  
Gaddes misinterpreted. "Yeah, when we got back from Rampart she showed up on the bridge and royally chewed Van's butt. Got pretty upset and then this pillar of blue light came and carried her off. Now Van's gone missing too. His catgirl said he went to bring Hitomi back. Said he was in love with her. I always thought they got on better anyways, but I know the boss was pretty crushed by it. Not that he'd ever let it show."  
  
"That's nice," Eries said absently. Folken was watching them very intently.  
  
Gaddes cast glances back and forth between the two and catching Eries' eye gave a wickedly knowing grin.  
  
"What?" Eries snapped at him feeling suddenly hostile at her invasion of privacy.  
  
The smug look didn't leave. "Allen wants to talk to you. He asked if I'd take you to the cemetery now so you could talk privately. That's all I know."  
  
Eries nodded her head reluctantly.  
  
"I'll meet you with the carriage down in the courtyard. Don't be too long, Hime." He made an overly flamboyant bow and walked away shaking his head.  
  
The whistling started up once again behind her. Damn, she'd have to put off talking to Folken yet again. Oh well, perhaps she'd think of something to say when she got back.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
It hadn't been hard to find the Knight Caeli, but Eries took her time approaching him. He was kneeling beside a young lady at a grave she knew was his mothers. She, at least Eries assumed it was a girl, was a strange looking thing with very short pale blond locks and dressed in what appeared to be some of Allen's own clothing. Allen certainly wasn't taking his recent rejection to harshly if he'd found someone that fast.  
  
Allen rose when she got close, but the girl remained kneeling sitting as still as tombstones that surrounded them. "Thank you for coming, Eries Hime." He tried to lift the girl to her feet but the pale girl wouldn't comply. So he just turned her head briefly letting Eries glimpse a pair of blue eyes before she turned back to the grave. "This is my sister Celena."  
  
"Sister?" Eries felt a twinge of guilt at her hasty assumption, more for the sake of the sister than for Allen. She'd heard the story of Allen's sister before. The girl had gone missing some ten years back and no one had seen or heard a thing since. Everyone but Allen believed she was dead. "Can it really be?"  
  
Allen turned to the girl. "It's been ten years but I'd recognize my sister anywhere. Poor thing, she doesn't remember where she's been all this time."  
  
"She's lost her memory?" Eries gazed past him to the silent girl kneeling at her own mother's grave. Ten years, she would only be finding out now that her mother was gone. It must hurt her terribly. The girl turned her head to follow the flight of a passing butterfly.  
  
"Eries Hime. Take care of my sister while I'm away fighting. You're the only one I can ask." He didn't even look at her as he spoke, but his gaze was not upon Celena either. His voice was edged with forced calmness.  
  
Was he reduced to that? So alone in the world that she was only one he dared to ask? Eries stared at the knight and for a moment pitied him. All things aside, it taken a lot of courage to ask such a thing of her. But the memory of Chid's unhappiness still clung tight in her chest, unhappiness he was responsible for. She'd do it for Celena, not him. "Very well. She is the sister of a Knight of Caeli. I'll take care of her at the palace."  
  
Before he could reply, Celena started to scream.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
"Dilandau."   
  
She'd met him before on the Vione. The pale young warrior who'd laughed at her and Folken. The boy with red eyes. Cold, wicked eyes.  
  
"I'm sorry, I don't know a whole lot about his past, but it seems certain that the Sorcerers are behind him." Listening to Folken's voice, always so deep and calm helped to finally subside Eries's shaking. The whole experience, it seemed surreal now, like it had never happened. It could never happen. Celena's body writhing, growing and changing to the sound of the girls agonized scream. And when shed turned around... red eyes.  
  
"They experimented on people?" Allen cried out, bringing her mind back into the room. "My sister ... Celena's..." He trailed off, a pathetically hopeless look on his face. Allen wavered for a moment rocking back a forth on the balls of his feet, his hand flexing on the hilt of his sword, seeming to decide whether Folken was truthful about his non-involvement or should loose yet another limb. Finally, he gave up and without another word to anyone left the room.  
  
"A girl into a guy?" Dryden mused. "I wouldn't have thought such a thing possible."  
  
"How can you talk so casually about something so immoral?" Millerna snapped at him.  
  
Dryden looked at her over the rims of dark glasses. "I never said it wasn't. I was only thinking if Zaibach can do that without Hitomi's presence in Gaea then we're in more trouble than we previously thought. War is about to start; the ships are massing here and will leave for Zaibach's frontier soon. We should talk with our allied leaders."  
  
"You aren't going to tell them about Celena, are you?" Millerna asked as Dryden turned to leave. "Haven't they gone through enough?"  
  
"I wasn't going to mention it. No point in panicking the nobles over something like that. I doubt they'd believe me anyway. Probably send me to the nuthouse. That wouldn't do much for my reputation." He left and Millerna looked over at Eries with a desperate look in her eyes.  
  
"Believe in him," Eries said. "Dryden needs you now. He needs your support."  
  
Millerna nodded slowly and followed Dryden out the door leaving Eries alone with Folken. He stared directly forward at nothing, his face so grave he looked like he really had just come back from the dead.  
  
"Folken," she said not knowing quite where to start. "You used to be a Sorcerer, didn't you?"  
  
His eyes flicked over to her.  
  
"Did you ever exper..." she stopped herself. That would be a cruel and pointless question. "Was that why you left and became a Strategos?" she asked instead.  
  
He nodded and sat down in the windowsill.  
  
"Oh. That's good." She sat beside him, but not too close. It was uncomfortable enough already.  
  
"It's not good," Folken said. "I left because I objected to the practice, but I did nothing to stop it. I left those children to their fate so it doesn't really matter whether I did the experiments or not."  
  
"That's not true. You didn't hurt them, you didn't turn Celena into Dilandau."  
  
"I may not have know about the cases specifically, but I knew enough. And I did nothing to stop them. In the end there is little difference."  
  
"So I guess that makes me a bad person, too? I didn't help them."  
  
"You didn't know." Folken closed his eyes. "I did."  
  
"But you were working for a better Gaea, weren't you? Trying to make things better for everyone?"   
  
She looked over at him, at his face. The purple tear that had always marred him expressed everything he could not. So much sorrow, so much sadness but he was only able to express it through pain. Pain he inflicted upon himself over a guilt he could not let go of.  
  
"You're not a bad person, Folken. Whatever you've done, or haven't done, it doesn't matter now; you're working to set things right. A bad person wouldn't do such a thing."  
  
"You don't know the things I've done. You don't know what kind of person I am."  
  
Eries looked away. "No, I don't. But ... I'm a bad person myself, aren't I? I betrayed my country and poisoned my king; I helped bring about the destruction of this city and Fried and soon Gaea. I'm a horrible person." She laughed bitterly and mirthlessly. "But I've been trying to set it right, do what I can. I want to pay for my trespasses so I may, one day, be forgiven. I want to do good; I don't want to be a bad person forever."  
  
"My sins shall be ransomed with my life," Folken said darkly.  
  
"I won't allow King Aston to kill you. Besides, Dryden is in charge right now; he won't have you killed. He thinks it interesting to have someone else of high intellect around." She tried to smile but failed. "I, too, may pay the ultimate price for my sins. But we're still breathing now, aren't we? We're still alive. It's not too late."  
  
"A person can be dead on the inside, even when the body lives."  
  
"You aren't like that," Eries said. How could she make him believe it? After a moment she added: "Who's Naria?"  
  
Folken seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. Eries waited for him to talk. "She, Naria, was someone I cared about deeply. A girl and her twin sister I found as children. They were catwomen." He didn't say more.  
  
"Oh, so that's why you mistook me for her," Eries said.  
  
"I've seen a lot of their qualities in you. Even before my discovery last night. I miss them."  
  
"Are they in Zaibach?" Were they waiting for him there? Or had they been loyal to Zaibach and not Folken.  
  
"They died."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"So am I. I wanted to give them a better life, change their fate, but I didn't make things much better. And I could have ... so easily ... but I failed. It's always like that. I failed them and I failed you." He looked down at her, his face so sad. "I'm sorry I didn't help you." Cold metal fingers brushed her cheek tenderly. "But maybe it's for the best. You would have ended up like them and like me."  
  
Eries didn't say a thing as he pulled her close. Not to kiss her, just to hold her. "It can be a dark world, Eries. And I'm tired, so very tired." He didn't say more and didn't let go. She rested her head against his side with his heavy arm around her shoulders and gazed with him in silence at nothing in particular. 


	13. Confession of Love

Chapter 13: Confession of Love  
  
It was nice. Sitting there in Folken's arms, her head rested against his side where she could hear the steady beating of his heart. The world so calm for a moment. In his arms, a place she had longed to be. It was so nice and comforting and ... meaningless. Empty.  
  
Eries glanced up at Folken. His eyes were locked forward on something distant, something beyond the room. She knew he thought on them. Not her. And she knew he held them even though his arms were around her.  
  
He cared about them. Naria and Eryia. He still did. So Eries was what? A friend? Just a friend to him though with one word from his lips she would be his completely. Her life, her body, her heart and her soul she would all give if only he would ask. But he wouldn't. He did not love her.  
  
She'd hold on anyway. Even if only as a friend. He needed her for that moment. He needed a friend. How many of those did he have now? Now that he'd betrayed his country. How many people were left who trusted and cared for him? How many did she have, for that matter?  
  
She had Millerna. Who now had Dryden, so she didn't need Eries anymore; she never had. Millerna was strong. She cared though, in the way sisters did. She may even love, but they'd never told each other. But there was so much Millerna did not know. Horrible things that would certainly drive them apart. Make her hate Eries.  
  
So Folken was all that was left. He knew. He knew a lot, but he had not condemned her for it. For the awful things she had done. For the awful thing she was. She needed him. His arms around her, holding her. And perhaps he needed her as well. Someone who saw him as a person, not a criminal or traitor. They looked to each other for forgiveness. And maybe for one moment she could pretend he looked to her for love.  
  
Folken sighed heavily and took his arm back from her shoulders. As if he had read her thoughts. The moment of serenity was gone. "You should go."  
  
She nodded and rose to her feet smoothing her skirt out. "It's good to see you are alive, Folken. Perhaps we can talk again sometime. I'm always willing to lend a friend my ear."  
  
"You'd be best to put this all behind you. Forget about it. Forget about me."  
  
"I won't forget you. Not ever."  
  
"I don't love you." He sounded so angry.  
  
"I know," Eries whispered. She left the room, left him without a tear in her eye. She'd known it before; he didn't have to say it. Her eyes went cold again. If you've never had it, you cannot loose it; therefore, there was no point in shedding tears about it.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Eries's feet carried her through the halls of the castle. Her eyes, glassy and cold, stared forward not seeing where her feet took her. Folken didn't love her; she'd known it before, but why did it hurt so much more to hear the words said? She had loved him, once, but he hadn't returned it. It was time to stop pretending. She still had a life to live. Even if it was fated to be a lonely one.  
  
Eries stopped, finding her feet had carried her to the door of King Aston's bedchambers. What had possessed her to come here? Looking for more misery or perhaps just a situation she could control. Still, she hadn't seen the king for quite a while. She rapped softly with her knuckles and waited for someone to answer. Inside she could hear him coughing, a retching cough and knew the poisons she had fed him had torn his insides apart.  
  
The door opened and she was greeted by a dark-haired handmaid with even darker circles under her eyes. She looked like she'd been awake for days.  
  
"I apologize, my lady, but the king is not accepting visitors now. The doctors say he needs his rest."  
  
"I don't care what any doctors say. I wish to see him."  
  
"Who is it?" his voice came roughly from inside the dark room. "I said I don't want to see anyone now."  
  
"It's your daughter Eries."  
  
He was silent for a moment and the handmaid flashed Eries an "I told you so" look.  
  
"Let her in."  
  
Aston lay in bed his eyes following Eries intently as she approached. His skin was ashen gray, but his eyes were bright and focused. The sickness had taken much of his health, but it hadn't sapped all of his strength. Nor taken his mind.  
  
"Leave us and get some sleep," he ordered to the handmaiden. And then lapsed into another coughing fit. Eries held a pan up to his chin to catch the bile that dribbled from his lips. She looked at him her stomach turning. He'd found a whole new way to be repulsive.  
  
"I can see it your eyes. I'm rotting away," he rasped. "It hurts, Eries. It eats me from within."  
  
She dutifully wiped his chin clean, but didn't have anything to say. He grabbed her wrist with his cold fingers in a grip tight enough to hurt.  
  
"I don't want to die."  
  
They stared at each other for a long time. Her blue ice eyes searching the sunken darkness of his own. He finally let her go.  
  
"Sit down. It's been awhile since we've talked." She sat. And the uncomfortable silence continued. She didn't know why she'd come; she had nothing to say to him anymore.  
  
"Don't you think it's funny that she called you my daughter?" Aston asked and produced a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a cough.  
  
"It's what everyone thinks," Eries said.  
  
"But it's not true. Not in anyway. You've never been my daughter. Daughter's shouldn't hate their fathers; they shouldn't try to kill them." The blood in Eries's veins went cold; he knew. Aston continued. "And Fathers. They're supposed to raise their daughters. Do things for them. I've never even told you a bedtime story. Aren't Fathers supposed to do that sort of thing? No wonder you hate me."  
  
"Like you said: we aren't father and daughter," Eries replied.  
  
"It's getting late; the sun is setting, but perhaps it's not too late for a story. Would you like to hear one?"  
  
"I'm too old for bedtime stories."  
  
"Even one about your father. Your real father?"  
  
Eries eyed him suspiciously. He was up to something she knew that for sure. He wasn't acting like his usual self. Besides, she didn't know if she wanted to hear what he had to say about her father.  
  
Aston spoke anyway. "He was a beastman. A present your mother, Theresa, had received when she was a little child. Long before I met her; long before I married her. He was her little 'pet', her childhood playmate and friend. From the first time I met them I knew it was more. I knew he rutted after her. When we married he came along as Theresa's personal escort, her protector." He laughed slightly. "He hated me so much. I was one he tried to protect her from."  
  
He broke into another coughing fit before continuing. "As soon as I went to war he made his move. Made you. Oh, I could have killed him that day I returned, I was so angry. I stormed the entire castle looking for him, but Theresa had sent him away long ago. And she made me promise to leave you and him unharmed as long as she lived."  
  
Eries frowned. "So the moment Mother passed away you massacred me?"  
  
"Understand Eries. I wanted to make things right. I wanted you to be my daughter. But I couldn't truly forgive Theresa for what she'd done and I couldn't forgive you. Your father I had hunted down after she passed away. It took a few years to find him since he'd already been gone for over six years, but ... my hunters tracked him down in the forests outside Fanelia. He'd taken a wife, started a family and of course, denied the whole thing. But the truth was extracted. Strange, as quick as he was to abandoned you and Theresa, he fought quite valiantly trying to save his children's lives."  
  
"You bastard!" Eries cried. "You murdered them all?"  
  
"Those who commit treason, who defile the royal throne, must be punished."  
  
"Why did you do such a thing?" Eries gripped the arms of her chair so tightly her knuckles turned white. She hated him more than ever before. He talked too casually about something so callus. She wanted to tear him apart with her claws and pull out the black thing called a heart. Get revenge for the murdered family she never knew. "Tell me, King Aston, what did his wife do to deserve death? What did his children do?"  
  
"They did not deserve it," he said simply. "But I was angry and disgraced. I wanted revenge."  
  
"Why are you even telling me all of this? Do you want me kill you now?"  
  
"I want your forgiveness."  
  
Eries was taken aback in surprise. "What?"  
  
"I want your forgiveness, Eries. I want you to truly be my daughter. But I want to do it right this time. I remember that night, the night Millerna was born, when I took you to the doctors. You snuggled up against my shoulders and called me 'Daddy'. I think that's the only time you ever did."  
  
"I was a stupid little fool. So stupid for ever trusting you."  
  
"No, you were just innocent. And I crushed it from you. Took your innocence and your trust. I'm sorry, Eries. I'm sorry for the life you've had to lead. Please forgive me."  
  
"No," she said coldly.  
  
He nodded his head wisely. "I understand. You are still angry. But I want you to know..." he paused. "I love you."  
  
No one in her entire life had said such a thing to her and Eries recoiled. Him? King Aston was the one who said it? "No."  
  
"I love you, Eries," he said it again. Awful, awful words from his mouth.  
  
"Shut up! I don't want to hear it!"  
  
"But it's the truth."  
  
"I don't want your love!"  
  
"You don't have to want it, Eries. I'll love you anyway. And you are my daughter, even if not by blood."  
  
"NO!" she screamed again and fled from the room.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
"I hate you! I hate you!" Eries screamed again and again to her own empty room. She grabbed a chair and beat it against her desk until two of the legs broke off. "Bastard! Why is he the one that loves me? I don't want such a thing from him. I hate him!"  
  
As she grasped the broken chair tighter ready to send it across the room she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. Her face contorted with her fury, she looked awful and ugly. No wonder Folken did not love her. Ugly stupid bitch.  
  
"I hate you," she told herself quietly and her reflection said it back. The only one who loved her, cared about her now was Aston, a rotting evil man. "I hate you." She screamed it again and sent the chair smashing into the silver surface of the mirror. It broke and scattered across her desk.   
  
"Hate you." Barely a whisper to her broken reflection. Her lip trembled. He she loved did not love her. He whom she hated gave her love she could not accept and did not want.  
  
Eries wept. 


	14. Demon's Angel

Chapter 14: Demon's Angel  
  
Standing atop the crenulated castle wall Eries watched cool night pass around her. In the distance, clouds rose like steam from the sea and blotted out the stars above and dimmed the glow of the mystic moon. The only stars to be seen were from the countless pinpricks of light that were the torches lit in the buildings below, and the only useful light was from the castle at her back. It was late but the city did not sleep. Worry kept them awake and made the air thick with tension; their loved ones were leaving soon. They wanted to keep close to them in these last few hours, so faces they might never see again would not be forgotten.  
  
Eries stood with her toes at the very edge of the wall and gazed out over the stardusted city. Asturia seemed vast and proud in the dark like it had been before she'd helped to destroy it. The ruins would be visible once again in the morning, she didn't know if she would be able to bear the sight again. The winds of a coming storm greedily tore at her hair and skirt pulling them into the darkness before her. They whispered to take one more step and go over the edge. It would be so easy. Just one more step and she'd be free. She wouldn't have to deal with Aston's love. Just jump and fall and die.  
  
"I don't want to," she whispered. "I don't want to die, but I don't want to live like this either." She wouldn't jump, she knew she wouldn't, but she looked down into the darkness anyway and wondered how long it would take before she hit the ground. How long it would take before they found her. How much would it hurt to hit the ground. She wouldn't jump.  
  
"Going to jump, Hime?" A voice mocked behind her, a mirror of her own thoughts.  
  
Eries didn't have to turn to know the voice. "If you want me dead, Meiden, you could always push," she said coldly.  
  
She heard his footsteps come towards her and saw the dark figure at her feet peer over the edge of the wall. "It'd be quite a fall, Hime, but I doubt as bad as the one you're about to take."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"When everyone finds out you poisoned your father you'll wish you had jumped now. I have the proof, Hime. There is no escape. Look at what I have." She looked down at what he held in his hand, and saw the dim light gleaming off the corners of a glass vial filled with an evil green liquid. "All I have to do is place this in your room and send some guards up to find it."  
  
"It won't prove anything," Eries said.  
  
"But I'll be able to testify that I saw you put it in King Aston's drink. But you'd told me it was medicine. We'll be able to prove differently."  
  
"So you're setting me up?" It sounded odd considering she really had poisoned Aston.  
  
"By morning I could have you sitting in a jail cell. Unless..."  
  
"Unless what? Unless I jump?"  
  
She felt Meiden's hand play with the hem of her skirt. "You know what I want."  
  
Eries kicked at his hand and backed over to the next crenulation. "Your son is going to be king, Meiden. Leave it at that."  
  
"True. But I could get awfully rich myself with a woman of your position."  
  
"Aren't you rich enough?" Eries crouched down so she stood eye to eye with the merchant. "I would never be your wife."  
  
"I don't want a wife," Meiden laughed. "I was married once before and didn't much care for it. Besides my son is going to be king there's no stopping that. This deal is no longer about that, so just consider my offer. I'd get richer off the deal but you'd benefit too. I treat my mistresses well. I'd bring you all sorts of pretty bobbles from far off places."  
  
"This is blackmail. I don't bend to such things, Meiden."  
  
"Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer the exchange of goods and services." Eries's jaw dropped. "I do what I must to get what I want. I think you're the same way. You need me to keep my mouth shut and I will. As long as you obey my wishes."  
  
"How dare you even suggest such things? I won't be treated like some whore!"  
  
Meiden grabbed her around the legs. "You don't have much choice. I know your dirty secret. Submit or you'll be dead soon enough."  
  
Still holding her legs he pushed her a little closer towards the black void below. Eries screamed and clutched at his cloak.  
  
"What will it be, Hime?"  
  
Eries tightened her grip on his cloak. If he were going to push her, she'd drag him over the edge too. "Go ahead and push me."  
  
"I won't push you but I will have a noose put round your neck and throw the switch myself. You'll die disgraced in front of your whole country, be buried in the grave of criminals, and people will only remember you with the utmost hate."  
  
Eries paused for a moment. A disgrace. The word stuck in her head. She felt Meiden's eyes boring intently into her and looked down to meet that expectant face eye to eye. "No. I'd rather die with everyone hating me than lower myself to you. At least I'd still have some dignity."  
  
Meiden was furious. "I still get what I want." His hands slid up her legs beneath her skirt and he tried to pull her forward. She screamed again and tried to push him away but the merchant was surprisingly strong.  
  
"Leave her be," a deep voice commanded.  
  
The struggle paused, and Eries looked up to see Folken half hidden in the shadows. There's was a dark and angry look on his face and his hand resting upon the undrawn hilt of his sword. "Folken!"  
  
Meiden let go of her legs and turned to consider the formidable man standing behind him. "This doesn't concern you. Leave." He reached back to grab at her again and Eries took a step back to avoid him. A silent scream emerged from her throat. There was no more wall waiting back there and Eries wavered for a moment trying to grab at the air to keep from falling backwards to her death.  
  
Meiden grabbed at her skirt and missed.  
  
"Eries!"  
  
Folken ran forward out of the shadows calling her name. His hand outstretched to take hers.  
  
The castle roof slipped away; Eries still reached out to take the hand she could no longer see. She fell instead through the darkness toward the hard ground below. Screaming silently. He'd been too late. She was going to die.   
  
Up above a dark figure dove off the roof after her. In a moment strong arms were around her waist and she clung desperately to him, her arms around his neck. It was Folken. Why? What was he thinking? They were both going to die now.  
  
And then she felt something very strange, something soft, something beating at the night air at Folken's back in a steady rhythm and she felt their fall slow. The things on his back, she knew what they were. Wings. Folken was... a Draconian.  
  
Unceremoniously they hit the ground. Hard, but slowed enough by the wings to survive. The impact with the hard ground and the crushing weight of Folken above her ripped the wind out of her. She felt Folken try to get up and she sucked in a few desperate lungfulls, but she still didn't let go of him. She should be dead.  
  
"Are you alright?" Folken asked.  
  
She nodded slowly still stunned.  
  
"Scared?"  
  
She nodded again.  
  
"Of me?"  
  
She blinked a few times staring up at a dark featureless face only inches from her own. "No, I'm not. I was scared I was going to die. You saved me."  
  
"Draconian's are cursed. You should be scared."  
  
"You're much less scary than Meiden. And I'm already cursed. Since the day I was born. That's probably why I hit the ground first."  
  
"I apologize there wasn't much time to check our fall. But you seem uninjured so you can probably let go now. We have landed."  
  
"Sorry." She let go and Folken rolled over to lie in the grass beside her his wings still unfurled. Eries gently touched the soft feathers and felt the wings tremble beneath her fingers. They didn't say anything for a while, just lay in the cool darkness. The back of her head was sore where she'd hit the ground and she could feel it throbbing.  
  
Even more she feel the time slipping away. Soon enough someone would come looking for them. And Folken would have to leave or be thrown in prison; Asturia had a history of treating Draconians poorly. It'd be best if they left before anyone showed up, but Eries didn't feel she had the strength left to move. And something was bothering her. It wasn't the wings. She'd always been taught Draconians were bad, but those wings had saved her life. Folken had saved her life. It was something about Folken though and question emerged to lurk in her mind.  
  
"Folken? It's not that I'm not grateful for you saving me because I am." She saw him sit up. "But why were you on the castle roof just then? Something tells me it wasn't just a coincidence."  
  
"I heard you scream," he said and after a long pause added: "But you're right it wasn't coincidence. I was looking for you."  
  
Up above the clouds broke for a moment around the Mystic Moon and its soft glow was cast down upon them. For the first time she could see him clearly. The top of his uniform hung about his legs exposing his bare chest and the black wings that had enfolded from his back. His hair was a windblown mess, falling over his forehead and into his eyes.  
  
"Why were you looking for me?" Eries asked curious. He paused again for some time just looking at her from behind his pale blue locks.   
  
"I wanted to apologize. For what happened earlier. I mislead you. That was wrong."  
  
"Wrong? What? Holding me or what you said?" She felt angry again. He didn't need to tell her again he didn't love her. "Stop playing games and speak plainly."  
  
"Don't you see?" He gestured to his wings.  
  
"I don't care if you're a Draconian." She sat up. "I'm a cat-girl."  
  
"I'm dying, Eries. Don't you understand? My wings have turned black. My fate is sealed. I'm going to be dead soon." He paused as the words sunk in. "I've hurt you again, haven't I? I shouldn't have said that. I don't want you to be sad."  
  
"You're dying?"  
  
"I don't have long left."  
  
"I'm sorry. I didn't know." The clouds covered closed again taking the light and making it dark again. "You tried to tell me before didn't you? But I didn't listen. I'm sorry."  
  
"It's not your fault. It is because I messed with fate that I die."  
  
"We may all be dead soon, with the coming war," Eries whispered. "I don't want to die. I don't want you to die!" Her hand came to rest on his. "Shouldn't we live while we still have the chance? Shouldn't we say the things that need to be said? Folken, even if you don't love me I want you to know I still love and care about you."  
  
In the darkness she could hear Folken chuckle to himself. She felt crushed again. "You laugh at my feelings?"  
  
"No," he apologized. "It's just ... she was right. People return your feelings."  
  
"Return your feelings?"  
  
"Eries, I love you, too. It's taken me a long time to realize it, there was so much that held me back. But being so near the end, and loosing them, and almost loosing you - I've been such a fool. I never wanted to see you hurt, and yet I kept on doing just that. Now that I'm dying and now that I've told you and now you are going to get hurt again." All his eloquence was gone and his words held no flow. But Eries only heard one thing.  
  
"You love me?" The tears fell freely down her cheeks.  
  
"Do you hear what I'm saying? If you love me you're going to get hurt."  
  
"I am willing to accept that hurt, Folken, because I love you," she said. "Nothing can be worse than all the years I've spent unloved; I'll always know that you loved me now." She wrapped her arms around his chest holding him so tightly. His arms came around her holding her back. He kissed her tears away and gently touched her lips with his own.   
  
"Hime! Eries Hime!" Many voices were calling for her. Meiden's included. "Get some torches out here!" "Where you think she landed?" "I had just come out on the roof when I saw her jump." "Think she's dead?" "You sure it was her?"  
  
Folken rose and pulled her to her feet. His dark wings dissipated into the night. "They're coming to look for you. I guess Meiden didn't mention me."  
  
"Thank goodness. Let's not be found out here. I couldn't bear trying to explain all of this. Come on, I know a way we can get into the castle without the guards seeing us." She wrapped her arms around Folken again holding him while she could.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
"I've been in my room all night. I don't know what you're talking about." Eries said to the castle guard standing outside her door. It would be simple enough to get rid of him. He was young and easily intimidated and blushing furiously at the sight of his princess wearing only her bathrobe.  
  
"Lord Meiden said he saw you fall from the roof of the castle."  
  
"Do I look I've fallen off the roof of the castle?" Eries tapped her foot impatiently.  
  
"No..." He didn't leave and kept on not looking at her in a way that meant he really was looking at her because the blush kept on getting deeper and deeper.  
  
"I'd like to finish my bath. Is there anything else you want?"  
  
"No, my lady. I apologize for disturbing you."  
  
He wasn't sorry in the least, but Eries nodded sharply and shut and locked the door on him. Well, that was one problem easily solved. Meiden's lies to save himself had also saved her. She grinned and turned to face Folken in her bed. He was looking at the smashed mirror and broken chair and Eries thought back to everything that had happened that night. Quickly she brushed Aston and Meiden from her mind she didn't want to think about them now. She didn't want to think about the fact Folken was going to die. He was here now. He loved her. And that was all that mattered.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
AN: There were a few interesting fact in my reviews that I thought I should share here. According to Ice Princess: "you know that Eries was a tribe of indians thats symbol was the cat or more precisely the panther. So now in some languages Eries means 'panther' or 'sly panther'" This was also backed up by Goddess in Disguise who said: . "Eries" means the "cat people" in some Native American tribe language. Ironic, ne?" Very ironic, but a nice find. I have no idea if this was intentional since I've never seen any reference to Eries actually being a catgirl, but it works out mysteriously nice. Ah, well, thanks for sticking the story out this long. Even though I don't have a lot of time to devote to writing I'm certainly enjoying it and I hope you are too. Only three more chapters til we reach the series end and the end of Neko Hime, too. I'll try to make them good ones! 


	15. Empty Frame

Chapter 15: Empty Frames  
  
Rain. Falling to the ground like the sky itself was weeping. It softly tapped on the balcony and against the walls and windows and roof. Washing everything clean, washing away the filth and grime that coated the city.  
  
Eries listened to it snuggled deeply in the warm covers of her bed. Without opening her eyes she could see everything perfectly. The gray morning sky casting down its tears. The stray drops of rain that trickled down the glass pane, slowly growing as they picked up other tiny droplets and gaining speed until they fell from sight. It had been a long time since she'd watched the rain. Watched the tiny drops race each other down the windows.  
  
Folken watched them now. She sensed his presence in the room, standing at the glass doors of her balcony his back to her. Tall and dark and solemn. The muscles on his back slowly rippling as his hand reached out to touch the rain, but meeting the glass instead. She knew how every strand of hair fell about his face, across sad eyes and the back of his neck. And she could see the shiny steel pins that dug into his flesh, holding tight the mechanical arm that clung to his side. That drank of his life's blood.  
  
Outside the room leviships passed overhead casting down their shadows as they glided across the gloomy sky. With their passengers already collected there was nothing left to stand between them and that distant storm. They were going away and they might not be back. There might not be anything to come back to.  
  
Reluctantly Eries opened her eyes though she would have rather slept. The room was exactly as she had pictured it. Even Folken with his hand upon the glass window tracing the path of the falling drops.  
  
"How long have you been awake?" she asked.  
  
He let his hand fall from the glass. "Quite a while, but then again, so have you."  
  
"How did you know?"  
  
"You purr when you sleep." She could see a slight smile grace his lips.  
  
"I was listening to the rain," she said. "It's rather sad."  
  
"I suppose so."  
  
"What's that old saying? 'Rain washes everything away.' It makes it all clean and new," Eries ran her fingers through her hair and pulled a black feather from the tangled strands. "I don't think it's true though. It doesn't really wash things away; you don't get rid of them. They just get relocated, but they aren't ever gone."  
  
"I guess not."  
  
"Sometimes, after a storm, things wash up in the canals. Things from far away distant places. Junk mostly. And it makes me think that Asturia is the 'away' for all the other countries. A place where everyone piles up their filth and rubbish that the rain took from them. And they think it's gone, they don't have to worry about it anymore, but it isn't. It hasn't really gone away. All the filth still remains and it's dumped upon us."  
  
"Isn't there anyway to get rid of it?" Folken asked. "Anyway to become clean again?"  
  
"We try. Pull the garbage out of the canals and bury it elsewhere. Forget about it. Put it out of sight and mind. Let time and nature make us forget about it all. I guess most of it we do forget about. Not all of it though.   
  
"One time, when I young, my older sister and I went walking, escorted of course, down by the canals. It was really early in the morning so the gondolas weren't out yet." She twirled the black feather in her fingers. "We saw this groups of men standing at the water's edge pulling a body out of the canal. A man had died and was floating there, just sort of bobbing face down in the river. Like a piece of garbage. He must have been there for days because he was all puffy and bloated; didn't really look like a person at all. The men were talking loudly about how he smelled and how much a bother it all was. Someone recognized him as some recluse, no family or friends or such. In a moment they were all laughing and joking about how he must have killed himself. Nobody seemed to care he was dead or about him at all. The escort took us away, kept on turning my head away from the scene, but we'd both already seen it. Marlene cried. I don't think I did. I think that was only time I've ever seen a dead person."  
  
Folken had turned and was looking at her now as she rubbed the black feather between her fingers. "My father was the first for me. I remember he didn't really look dead, just asleep. Like I could just reach out and shake his shoulder and he'd wake up. And everything would be normal again. It didn't seem real." Folken paused. "It's been a long time since I thought about him. When I first joined Zaibach I used to think a lot about him, and my mother, and my little brother. It was years before I learned of my mother's death. But it was only in words, it seemed even less real than my father's passing."  
  
"Words aren't the same, are they? I never saw my mother after she died. Or Marlene. The body was always buried by the time I got there. They'd just tell me they were dead and let it be at that. It never seemed real; sometimes I wonder if they really are dead. I mean, I know they are, but there was never a conclusion. No dramatic end to it all. No body. Just words."  
  
She looked up at Folken. "Don't die."  
  
"I don't want to die; I want to live," Folken said. "But I must follow the path fate has set out for me."  
  
"Let someone else do it!" Eries shouted. "I can't bear to think of you like the man in the canal. You know, I asked about him a few days later and no one remembered him. They'd brushed him to the side of their minds."  
  
Folken came and sat down beside her on the bed. His arms went around her and held her tight. "If I can escape my fate, I will. But we all die sometime; it doesn't mean we all end up like that man. Forgotten."  
  
"I won't forget you, but what about everyone else? Those men who laughed at the dead. Those people who forget everyone they can't see."  
  
"It's just the way some people deal with death. They don't want to look at the body; they don't want to think about death. You should put it behind you once I'm gone. Don't let it torture you."  
  
"I don't want to forget you!"  
  
"I'm not asking you to. Just not to dwell on the death part. People are remembered by what they do in life. How they change the world. What they contribute to the lives of others. Everything, every person we touch and change, all those we affect take a piece of us with them. So we aren't ever forgotten when we leave something good behind." He stroked her hair. "We don't remember _people_ we remember their actions. The things they used to do and will never do again. That's what we miss about them. That's why we mourn."  
  
"So it's not the death we mourn," Eries said slowly trying to understand everything Folken was saying. "It's the ending of the life. But that life, that memory continues as long as they have done something. Leave something behind for the rest of the world."  
  
"Something like that."  
  
Eries smiled. "So you'll never really be gone. Because you've touched my life."  
  
"She smiles! Good, I thought you were expecting me to drop dead right here and now."  
  
"No, I suppose we do still have some time together left," she grinned. "And here I am reminding you of things you probably don't want to dwell on. Making your last days miserable."  
  
"You don't seem very sad about it."  
  
"Well, I was thinking of what me might do instead of discussing morbid topics." She trailed her fingers down his chest. "Will you come again tonight?"  
  
"I already have an obligation. But if it cancels I'll come."  
  
"You should just skip it. Or is it something really important?"  
  
"It is. An obligation to my little brother. There's something I have to do for him."  
  
"Then you'd better not miss it. I know how little siblings can be. Tomorrow night, then?"  
  
Folken smiled. "Every night while I can." He kissed her again rather roughly and she fell back into the soft pillows with Folken's arms still around her.  
  
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+  
  
Folken was gone when she'd woken again. And so were the leviships. They'd be upon the frontier of Zaibach by nightfall and the war would not wait for dawn. The early morning rain remained behind, now no more than a light drizzle upon a gray day.  
  
There wasn't much left to do. The game was in the warrior's field now, not the politicians. So Eries remained in her room. She gathered up the bed sheets and set them soaking in the washbasin to remove the stains before she sent them down to be properly washed. And then collected the black feathers to toss over the balcony for the winds to take. Slowly she puttered around removing all traces of Folken's presence, continually finding the black feathers scattered in the strangest of places, and soon there was no evidence that she'd had a visitor. Her lover was a secret like everything else in her life.  
  
The glass from the mirror she had smashed apart was collected and thrown away. And now the frame stood empty reflecting nothing. It would be quite a task trying to explain how it and the chair had gotten broken, but she was sure whatever she said would stand unquestioned.  
  
To her despair she found that Meiden had indeed managed to plant the vial of poison in her drawers. It was not the rat poison she had used; she guessed it was a much more lethal concoction. Logic told her to get rid of it, to put the damning stuff as far away from herself as possible, but something else inside contradicted the logic and in the end overpowered it. So she stuffed it back in the drawer, wondering when Meiden had been in her room without her knowing it.  
  
Her day passed much too slowly, burdened by the restlessness of knowing other people were busy with important things.   
  
Soon after the sun had slipped into the sea a knock came at her door. Her hopes sprang to Folken being there, but Eries was not surprised to find Millerna calling for her instead. She was a little shocked at her sister's appearance. The weight of the past few days had taken their toll on her little sister. The stress and fatigue made her look older and more solemn than a girl of just fifteen, older than she had the right to look. Only fifteen. For some reason, it had never quite struck Eries just how young that really was.  
  
"I've received word that Father wishes to see us," Millerna said. "I thought we might walk together. I did not want to go alone."  
  
Eries smiled. "It's been a while since we've talked. I've hardly seen you since the wedding."  
  
"True. You took off soon after. I should have thanked you for all your help bringing the allies together and bringing in supplies. But we've both been busy and beyond the Celena incident we've barely been together five minutes in the same room. That must have been quite a disturbing experience. I've only heard about it but I still wake up in the night with chills."  
  
"With so much else happening I've not had much time to think about it," Eries said. "Or perhaps I don't want to because it could have so easily been anyone in her place."  
  
"I cannot imagine what they've gone through. Nor what Allen must feel right now; he is being sent to fight against his little sister," Millerna said sadly.  
  
Eries did not know how to reply and the silence lingered between them. "So how are you liking married life?" she finally asked.  
  
"I wouldn't know. Dryden's gone."  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Dryden left this morning and gave me back his wedding band. He released me of our vows." Eries cast a worried glance at her little sister. "He said he wanted to become the sort of man I deserved. Wanted to start over with the survivors of the war. And make me fall in love with him. It's really the most ridiculous thing. He just gave up an entire kingdom because ... because he believes he's in love with me. And he believes I will love him."  
  
She stopped walking and stared at the ground. Eries stopped too. "Believes?"  
  
"Marriage for a princess is a duty. What does love have to do with it?" Millerna asked reflecting a sentiment Eries had carried with her when she was younger. Before she met Folken. But she was not under the restraints Millerna was. The same thing that damned her had also saved her in that instance. And for the first time Eries was glad she was a beastgirl.  
  
"Do you love Dryden?" Eries asked.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Eries placed her hand on Millerna's should. "Allen..." she started.  
  
"I don't know... I don't want to be in love with anyone right now. I don't want to depend on someone else to make me happy. I don't want to be a burden to everyone."  
  
"You're not a burden. And Dryden wants to make you happy. What's wrong with that?"  
  
"Stop it," Millerna protested. "I don't want anyone pushing me into this. Dryden's leaving was his own will. I didn't drive him away."  
  
"Very well." Eries licked her lips as a new thought occurred to her. "Perhaps we should have Meiden Fassa sent away too. I'm sure he'll bother you non-stop about getting his son back in line for the throne. There's no way Dryden will listen to him. Not if he gave up the throne willingly."  
  
"Yes, yes. That'd probably be best. We'll send him to some far away kingdom." Millerna stared glassy eyed at the floor. "I miss him, Eries. It's suddenly so quiet now that he's gone. So very quiet. I miss him. But it doesn't mean I love him." 


	16. Clytemnestra

Chapter 16: Clytemnestra

King Aston was sitting up in bed when Eries and Millerna arrived.  His once pallid and sunken cheeks now bore a fleshy color not there the night before. The white gown he wore hung loosely off his deflated frame, months of sickness had whittled away at the stores of fat leaving loose folds of skin hanging from his arms and jowls on his face.  But his eyes were dull and distant, and he did not turn when they entered.  Just before arriving the nursemaid warned them of the man they would find inside.

"His body's healing," she said.  "But his heart isn't in it.  Poor dears, maybe you can cheer him up a bit.  I'm sure with a little motivation we'll get him up and about yet."

Millerna cast a furtive glance at Eries.  "I can't tell him about Dryden now," she murmured.  "It would kill him."

"You have to," Eries insisted.  And then added a reluctant "sometime" and swung the bedchamber open.  King Aston was staring out the window to a place far away.  

"Look," King Aston softly commanded.  "Look at our beautiful kingdom.  Look at what has become of her.  The gods must be angry with us for they've let her be raped by Zaibach.  And with this war she'll be destroyed, swallowed by the sea, gone forever into the mists of time.  Centuries from now they'll speak of Asturia remembering her in a time we've never seen.  When she was beautiful.  When she represented all the promise of a new world.  And everyone will say it was only a legend.  That no place could have even existed.  And perhaps they'll be right."

"Father, no," Millerna said taking a few cautious steps toward him.  "The gods are not angry; they only test us.  And we will prove strong.  Asturia will not be lost, she will be rebuilt -- more beautiful and more grand than ever before."

Aston looked to her.  "My beautiful and wise daughter," he whispered and held his hand out for Millerna to take.  She did so and knelt beside the bed.  Eries watched them silently standing with her back to the door.  "What have I done to deserve you?  The gods were good to me.  They gave me two daughters both wise and beautiful who carry in them the potential for the future, for a new world to be born when this war is done.  I will not last long into that new world.  And I will not be the one to fashion it.  So I leave Asturia to you and your husband.  Take care of her; take care of her people.  They are your sheep.  Treat them gently."

"Oh, Father," Millerna said emotion tearing her voice.  "I am not worthy of what you give to me.  I have been such a fool."

"You and Dryden shall learn together," Aston said.  He looked around the room.  "Where is he?  Why has he not heeded my request to come tonight?"

"Dryden is no longer in Asturia," Millerna said.  "And he is no longer my husband."

"What?"  An angry word.

"He left this morning of his own accord and gave me back his ring."

Eries saw Aston's fingers flex tight on Millerna's hand.  "No, Millerna, that is not right.  You took vows and Dryden is your husband.  Why did you drive him away?"

"I did not mean to drive him away.  He told me he wanted to start over with the survivors and become a better man."

"He is a fine man!  Good enough to become king!" Aston yelled his knuckles turning white around Millerna's hand.  "He cannot abandon his duties like that.  Bring him back at once!"

"Not so tight," Millerna gasped.  "You're hurting me."

"Like you hurt your kingdom through your selfishness?"  He did not loosen his grip.  And Millerna was trying to pull free.  "By rejecting your husband you reject Asturia.  You make a disgrace of her and yourself."

"Daddy, that hurts," Millerna begged.  There was a sickening popping sound as Aston squeezed even tighter on her fingers.  "Please stop."

"Why should I?"

"Stop it!" Eries hissed at him coming forward to the bed.  She pried Aston's fingers from Millerna's hands digging into his flesh with her nails as she did so.  "How can you hurt her like that?"

Aston stared at her.  "Who is this who questions me?"

"You know who I am, King Aston.  And you know the promises I've made to you.  You shall not treat Millerna like you have me.  If you do, what was started shall be quickly finished."

She helped Millerna off her knees and led her away from black-hearted wraith called Father.

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

They found themselves outside.  Standing together in the cool night air in a city that seemed peaceful despite the war that raged across the sea.

"Are you all right?" Eries asked.

"Yes, I don't think anything's broken," Millerna said rubbing her sore hand.  "I knew he'd be mad, but I never thought he'd try to hurt me.  It's not like him."

"He's still sick, Millerna.  He's not himself," Eries said.  "The disease may have affected his mind."

"A sickness of the mind?" Millerna said slowly.

Eries nodded, but it all sounded so hollow.  She was just repeating all the pretty words she learned so long ago.  All the excuses Mother and Marlene had made up for Eries to tell those who asked why.  Why does Eries walk so funny?  Why does Eries wear her gold earcuffs?  Why does Eries look so afraid when her father enters the room?  Why does Eries act so distant from the rest of the world?

The truth was that for the first time Millerna had seen the real King Aston, seen the one that Eries knew.  And yet Eries found herself making the excuses for him, too.

"But what did you mean back there?" Millerna asked.  "What did you mean about treating me like he did you?  What did you mean about finishing what was started?"

Eries looked away.  It was to protect Millerna, she'd made excuses to protect her little sister.  How long had she expected them to last?

"Has Father ever hurt you?"

Eries nodded.

"Whatever for?  You've always been the good daughter.  Why would he be angry with you?"  Millerna gasped.  "Oneesama?  What's been happening all these years we've grown up together?  Why do I hardly know you?"

"I suppose you're old enough to know now.  But I can't tell you tonight.  There's not enough time.  And it's too hard to talk about.  Too hard to hear."

"What happened?"  Millerna stared at Eries who did not say anymore.  Millerna talked instead.  "Do you remember those dolls you gave me when I was little?  Those wooden Matreshka dolls that nested inside each other?"  Eries remembered.  "It feels like you're one of those dolls.  Many layers that you can't see until you pull apart the outer shell.

"I'm scared about what I'll find when I try to open up your layers, my sister.  All my life there have been whisperings about you.  Things people don't say out loud.  Things Marlene would whisper to me and make me promise to keep quiet about."

"So you know?" Eries asked.

"I don't know anything!" Millerna cried.  "That's the problem.  I want to find out what's been going on, but I don't know when I'm going to reach that bottom layer.  I don't know when I'll break you if I try to force you to open up."

"Then let me do it in my own time," Eries said.  "And don't let it worry you."  

Out over the sea the horizon lit up.  A dome of light emerging from the battleground of Zaibach.  They looked out helplessly over the night.  Unable to know, unable to understand what was going on so far away.

"What was that?" Millerna gasped.

"I don't know," Eries said.  "I don't think it's good."

The horror of the unknown drew their minds away from Asturia.  And Eries knew no secrets would be laid bare tonight.  No answers for any questions.  The truth, in the end, would hurt too much.  And she could still protect Millerna.

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

The morning's light brought about the need to see Folken.  To hear from him that everything was going to be all right.  But much to Eries' regret Folken wasn't in his lab.  Instead she found the long creme-colored cloth he wore around his shoulders to conceal his mechanical arm.  She carried it with her out of the lab wondering where he had gone in such haste that he would leave it behind.

One of the councilmen stopped her in corridor.  "The report just came in.  The war has ended."

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

They were home.  The massive airships hovered above the city, waiting for a place to land.  A crowd had gathered to greet their loved ones who returned home safely, to bring care to the wounded and to mourn those who didn't return at all.

Eries stood next to Millerna. The Council was patiently listening to the Generals and Knights Caeli as they tried to explain what had taken place.  It became pretty obvious they had no clue but the dark haired king of Fanelia and brown haired girl were able to offer a somewhat better, if no less confusing explanation.  Yet, they seemed in a rush to be elsewhere.  King Van explained they'd just stopped through to pick up Merle, the pink-headed catgirl now snuggling at his side, and would soon be heading home to Fanelia.

The girl repeated that word 'home' thoughtfully and the king's eyes seemed saddened by that.

"We should be going," Lord Van said.  "Allen!"  He called to the Knight Caeli who was standing a ways off from everyone else, talking to his little sister and Gaddes.  Actually, she was talking to them.  Eries could hear her voice as she spoke but they were too far off to be understood.  Allen looked up, and Celena kept on talking to him.  "See you later, Allen.  Goodbye, Gaddes."

Allen nodded.  "Goodbye Van Fanel.  Goodbye Hitomi."

They were going to leave.  "What happened to your brother?" Eries asked.  She had to know even if she already knew the truth.

"He died.  Folken is dead," Van said quietly.

"He died killing Emperor Dorinkirk," Hitomi added. More words came from her mouth, but Eries had stopped listening.

_Folken is dead.  It repeated again her mind._

"Asturia commends his bravery," Millerna's voice reached her ears.  "We will not forget him."

_Don't forget him. She remembered Folken's word to her "Put my death behind you when I'm gone.  Don't let it torture you."  She remembered the words, but failed to remember how had he said it.  Had his voice been sad or stern - or grave?  What did his voice sound like at all?_

_Folken is dead._

Was she already breaking her promises to him?  She said she wouldn't forget him.  But how many times within those last few days, since she had found his lab empty, had she allowed herself to think about him.  Once or twice?  Then she had realized the truth.

_Folken is dead._

She had pretended.  She had pretended everything was fine, because it threatened to hurt.  It was stupid - and a damn awful thing to do to Folken.

Eries watched as the three young passengers boarded the white guymelef.  They were up in the air, flying on the dragon's back.  Flying away from Asturia.  Soon they were nothing more than a dot on the horizon.

_Folken is dead.  _

_Shut up!  She silently screamed to herself.  _

_Folken is dead.  _

_You've known it for days!  It's just like all the others.  They've told you now move on to something else.  Your mother is dead- now time to go see the doctors.  Find something else to cry about.  Marlene is dead- now go to Fried.  Express it all in eloquent words, but don't let the pain sink in.  Don't let it be real.  _

_Let's move on to something else.  Think about something else.  Worry about someone else.  The kingdom must be rebuild.  Trades must be restored.  Alliances rebound.  Let's go, let's go, let's think about something else, someone else.  Let's make our tears a show while getting colder all the time inside._

_Folken is dead._

No one knew what it meant to her.  Why should she cry?  Why bother to feel sad?  If she cried they would say she cried for all those lost in the war.  For the orphans, those innocents who suffered under a burden they didn't make.  Isn't it easier like that?  To cry for them.  It hurts too much to think about just one person, one face, one life.

_Folken is dead._

Why couldn't she cry at all?  It made her feel so empty inside.

Across the bridge Eries saw Gaddes standing beside Celena and Allen.  She saw him laugh at something Celena had said.  They were so merry.  Like the horror, the death meant nothing.  Didn't even exist in the world they knew.

Eries felt Millerna pulling her forward as she went to talk to them, but Eries didn't feel her legs moving.  She just saw Allen and Gaddes and Celena drift closer.  She heard Millerna saying polite words to them.  Heard Allen and Gaddes answer equally cordially.  She heard Celena still talking, her voice a steady cadence accompanying Millerna's.

_Folken is dead._

She felt a tug at her sleeve.  Celena stood there, eye to eye with Eries.  Cheerful blue eyes, so full of life.  So opposite of what Eries felt inside.

"Mother, can we go home now?" Celena asked.

"Celena, you're mistaken," Allen said.  "This is the Princess Eries.  Not Mother.  Remember I told you before, Mother passed away."

"Oh yeah.  Mother is dead."  Her voice and eyes just as cheerful as before, like Allen's word didn't matter one bit. "Are you coming over to play tomorrow?"

Allen pulled Celena back close to him.  "Sorry, she's still a little disoriented.  With your permission, princesses, I'm going to take her home."

"Come on, Mother, let's go home," Celena said, taking Eries's hand.

_Folken is dead.  _

Celena's mother was dead, and Celena stood there not caring one bit. Not even realizing what had just been said.  Allen might as well have been making a comment on the weather.  Eries felt her insides jump up in her throat.  Her legs went weak.  Folken was dead.  He was gone.  She fell to her hands and knees upon the bridge.

"Oneesama!  Are you all right?"  Millerna cried.  "Oh, you're so pale!"

"Dead," Eries whispered.  A moment before she had felt so empty and now she was full.  Full of awful stuff.  The poisons, the lies, the hate, Aston, Folken, Marlene, her mother, Celena's mother, Chid, the doctors and her little sister . . . and dead people.  A rotting corpse floating in the river.  It was all suddenly inside of her.   She felt nauseous and slapped her hand over her mouth trying to keep it all in.

"Eries Hime, are you alright?" It was Allen.  Why did he care?

"Going to be sick," she whispered.  A pair of white-gloved hands pulled her hair back from her face.  Allen crouched down on one side and Millerna on the other.  Her little sister with her fingers on Eries's wrist, trying to be a wife, a queen in training, a moral supporter, a doctor and a sister all at the same time. Yet here was Eries, being so damn weak in front of everyone.

"It's all right, Eries.  Just be sick.  You'll feel better," Millerna said.

_Folken is dead._

It repeated again screaming in her ears.  But she couldn't get rid of it.  She couldn't rid herself of the poisons that dwelled within.

+*+*+*+*+*+

AN: Just one more chapter to go.  A big THANK YOU is extended to everyone who has responded so far.  Your encouragement, comments, and even criticisms helped keep me inspired by this fic.  When I first began writing this over a year ago there weren't many Eries stories out and I had many misgivings on how well this would go over.  Added to that it's rather dark and depressing, and the main character is not entirely a nice person, and the writer of the story, me, is not very talented.  People responded way better than I expected; I can hardly believe I've gotten over 50 reviews.  Thank you all again and I'll see you next chapter.


	17. Final Retribution

Neko Hime 17

Final Retribution

A hazy mist had trapped itself between the cliffs and the sea that held the city of Palas.  From shore to bluff there was nothing but gray that swirled down the silent streets and canals.  Like a veil of mourning it hid the faces of the people from each other.  It silenced the blows of the smith's hammers and the loud cries of the bazaar.  No one was building.  No one was selling.  The city rested in a gray fog.

Laying upon the soft sheets of her bed Eries stared unseeing out the window.  The morning's mist seemed to have entered the palace and found its way into her head for her thoughts were clouded and jumbled.  She'd lain for almost a week in her room while a fever boiled its way through her veins.  The pain raged in her stomach, in her head and in her heart.  Beads of sweat slid down her brow and stung her tearless eyes.  She didn't bother to brush them away.  It hurt to move.  It hurt to think.  She was sick, and she didn't want to get well.

Her door was locked from the inside keeping out the help of the handmaidens and her sister.  And more importantly keeping away the doctors they brought.  Eries didn't want to see them; she didn't need to see them.  The sickness that now overtook her had built up for years.  A mass of poisons in her mind, body, and soul.  Poisons held back by her fantasies for a better future, for a better life.  Now there were no more idle dreams.  Folken was dead.  He who had loved her was dead.

Through tiny snippets of conversation she managed to catch Eries had learned that Folken's body was finally being put to rest back in Fanelia.  She would never see it.  She would never see Folken again.  

And Folken, poor Folken, had lain for nearly a week in a pool of his own blood on a cold hard floor in Zaibach before his body had been moved at all.  He'd laid alone.  Laid where he'd fallen.  Stiffened and rotting while the politicians negotiated the return of his body to his home.

No one had wanted to touch the body of a Draconian.  No one wanted to be cursed by being brushed with the black wings.  So the King of Fanelia, Folken's little brother, had to go himself.  He had to leave his kingdom, which was only starting to be reformed, and journey back behind enemy lines to bring his brother home.  It broke her heart.

Eries grasped tighter in her hands the crème cloth that Folken had dropped in his lab.  It still smelled like him.  A smell like metal and rain.  The smell, the cloth, the memories; they were all that she had left of him.

What she would have done for one more day with him.  One more hour.  Even a minute more to tell him once again how much she had loved him.  How much he meant to her.

A loud rapping came at her door and Eries did not answer.  She assumed it was Millerna wanting to 'doctor' her big sister, or a handmaiden with food that would be uneaten.

"Eries Hime," a masculine voice came from the other side of the door.  Eries sat straight up as the voice cut through her like a knife.  "Open this door."

Not wanting to but knowing she must, Eries made her way on unsteady feet to the door.  King Aston stood outside and he stood alone.  Eries was taken aback.  His eyes had regained that maliciously cunning glint that informed her of his impending recovery.  If not for the air lingering weakness that still hung about him Eries was sure he would spring and attack her.

He barged into the room not waiting for permission and dropped onto the bed with a mighty huff.  "You look almost as bad as I do," he chuckled.

"I've been ill," Eries explained warily and shut the door.

He laughed at her.  "Don't give me that bullshit, Eries."

"What do you want from me, King Aston?" she frowned.

"Well, since you did ask, part of me wants you thrown in the dungeon, wants to see you hanging from the gallows and wants to see your body torn up in a thousand pieces and fed to the fish.  But that's only part of me.  The other part of me, that silly little part that for some damn reason loves you, would like an explanation before I call the guards in here and have all those things done."

She backed up against the wall.  Afraid of him.  She could try to act innocent, deny what he was about to accuse her of.  But she knew his mind, and knew there would be no escape.  Her eyes drifted from him to the crème cloth that was still lying on the bed, it was proof enough for everything.  Aston followed her gaze.

"Well, what have we here?"  He mocked picking the cloth up.  Eries could sense Aston's smell mingling in the fibers threatening to destroy that last remnant of Folken.  "Isn't this the cloth that Zaibach defect used to wear?"

Eries didn't answer.

"Now what would you be doing with it?  Has my little kitty been a naughty girl?"  His voice dripped with sarcasm.  

Part of her wanted to tear the cloth away from him and run away.  And part of her wanted to wrap the cloth around Aston's fat neck and strangle the life from him.  Strangle the smug grin off his face.  She did neither.

"Don't think you're so damn clever, Eries.  I know what you've been up to.  You and that Strategos.  I have eyes all over this castle.  They know everything.  Even things you don't think they know.  They've told me about your little encounter.  It wasn't too hard to figure out the rest.  Except why?  Why play the double agent?"

"I loved him," she whispered.

Aston laughed at her again.  "You loved him?  You have to have a heart for that, Eries.  But then again, I could see where you might get confused, after all, no one has ever loved you."

"That's not true!" Eries protested her lower lip trembling as she struggled not to cry at his harsh words.

"How could they, Eries?  You're the vilest little creature I've ever come across.  You're not a human and you're not a beastgirl either.  So that makes you a nothing.  You're a nobody, Eries.  And no one could ever love you."

"Mother loved me!" she cried.  "And Marlene and Millerna, too."

He chuckled at her words and Eries loathed him more than anything right then.  She hated him because he sat there so calm while she got shaken up by his words.  Because after all these years he still controlled her.  "Your mother regretted having you.  She told me herself.  And Marlene thought as I do.  They never loved you."

"There's Millerna."

"Has she ever told you?"

Eries shook her head and a triumphant look spread across Aston's face.   "So tell me, did this Strategos ever say that he loved you?"

Eries, very slowly, nodded.  "He loved me.  He told me himself.  And I loved him.  So you were wrong, King Aston.  Somebody has loved me.  Folken loved me."

"No, Eries," Aston said gravely.  "He didn't love you.  He _used you.  He used you to get just what he wanted."_

"No!" Eries felt the tears brim up in her eyes.  "You're a liar.  You don't know anything!"

"Oh, really?  You gave him confidential information, didn't you?  Information about Asturia.  Information about our allies.  He asked and you delivered.  Gained your sympathy then stole your body and your soul, led you along on a leash.  He made you his little bitch.  He might have said he loved you but just because it's what you wanted to hear.  He never loved you."

"Shut up!" Eries screamed tearing at her own hair.  She looked to rotting man sitting on her bed and hated him.  Violently she yanked open her desk draw and pulled from it a full bottle of poison and slowly approached the bed, a dangerous look in her eye.  

"You look thirsty," Eries said.  "You should drink something.  I have a little bottle of vino here."

"Get that away from me," Aston said.  "You're little trick may have broken me down this far, but I'm not as foolish as you think."

Eries smirked.  "Daddy, you need to take your medication.  Things won't get better until you do."  She pushed him backwards on the bed and tipped the vial to his mouth letting a little bit of the liquid dribble out wetting his lips.  Aston's turned his head away clamping his mouth firmly shut.  He tried to push the bottle away, but he was no longer strong enough to overpower her.

Eries climbed up fully on the bed and straddled his body pinning his arms down with her knees.  He looked up at her with terror overtaking his eyes.  The same sort of look she used to give to him.  It didn't stop her now.  It hadn't stopped him then.

She slid her fingers between his lips opening them enough to let the poison dribble into her cheeks and filter into his mouth between his teeth.  Aston tried to spit it out, cough it up but she clamped one slender hand over his lips and the other on his nose.  The need for breath finally made him swallow.

Eries crawled off the bed leaving Aston to his fate.  She smoothed her skirt and pushed her pale blond hair back behind her ears.  Without even turning to look at him again she left the room.

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

It was a calm and blue day.  The sea breeze had blown the morning's gray fog away.  And Millerna was standing on the balcony outside her father's study.  She gazed quietly out over Asturia to where a blue pillar of light streaked the sky.  Eries approached her little sister wanting to take in the moment of quiet before Aston's body was discovered.  She'd told the maids he was napping on her bed.  Poor man, he would die in his sleep.

"How are you feeling?" Millerna asked.

"I'm feeling great."  Eries smiled, the grin licking her face from ear to ear.  She wrapped her arm around Millerna's back and felt her little sister lean into the hug.  "It's all been made right."

The End


	18. Author Notes

A big THANK YOU is extended to all my readers!  You guys are great!

Author Notes:

Wow, we've finally hit the end of the series.  I can hardly believe this thing took seventeen chapters.  In my original outline it was seven and it extended well beyond the series.  Of course in my original outline Eries wasn't a catgirl and she wasn't pursuing Folken either.  Way back when I first gained an interest in writing an Eries fic it was going to be an Eries/Gaddes romance because I thought of all the secondary characters they'd look the best together.  How very shallow of me.

A few things obviously got changed around during the development, and this fic that got its birth from such shallow waters has certainly expanded into something much deeper, I think.  And a much larger project than I ever intended to take on.

Writing a story that took place not just during the series, but actually interweaving without seriously altering proved to more challenging than I thought.  I can't count the number of times I went back to Escaflowne tapes to figure out _when _things happened.  From the attacks on Rampart, Fanelia and Fried to what time of day it was when Eries and Allen talked in the cemetery.  And how long things took was even worse.  What span of time did this series cover?  How long did it take them to get to the Mystic Valley?  And how long did Hitomi stay after everything was done before going home (those houses were getting along pretty well)?  And for that matter how long was she in Fanelia in the second episode between the dragonslaying and the coorination (was it the same day? a week later?)  An awful lot of guesswork went into this, cause I just don't know.  Does anyone have a good guess?

All that 'research' seemed a bit pointless at times.  After all Neko Hime was not about 'things happening'.  I'm terrible at writing about 'things happening' and try to avoid action as much as possible.  Even during the attack on Asturia, which Eries was there for, there was no action.  Neko Hime, like the majority of what I write, is about emotion and reaction.  People reacting to one other, to events that take place, to their own actions and emotions, and most importantly how it changes them.  And since this story is in the angst category it tends not to be for the better.  My stories have points, not good morals.

There was an except from John Milton's Lycidas I went back and added to first chapter which pretty well sums up the idea behind this fic, and the relationship Eries has with King Aston.

_The hungry Sheep look up and are not fed,_

_But swoln with wind, and the rank they draw,_

_Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread…_

Now, I know there will be a quite a few people growling about the ending.  Yes, I know you wanted Folken to come back to life and be with Eries.  But in end this story is about more about Eries and Grava Aston than Eries and Folken.  And I did spend an awfully long time integrating this story in the series and my desire to stay true to won out over all my affections for Folken (He is my favorite Escaflowne character, so it wasn't easy.)

So I suppose if you're disappointed with the ending you can try to interpret it one of two ways.  Both of which you have to realize that Eries' last sentence "It's all been made right" mirror what Grava said to _her _in the first chapter "It's all going to be made right."  

The first way thinks that this was a conscious thing, Eries has never forgotten what Grava told her and knowingly says it.  With this interpretation it makes for a nice clean ending.  Eries is saying: "It's over.  It's the end this chapter, to his effect on my life.  I'm going to move on."  And everyone is happy.  Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

The second way of looking at it, which is my preferred interpretation, is that it was an unconscious act.  I'd compare to the Western film "Unforgiven" where the ending is a cycle back to the beginning.  We have an entire story dedicated to a person trying to be a good person stay away from the evil that once/ could dictate their lives, but their actions keep leading them farther and farther down the wrong path and in the end they are corrupted.  Like Folken once said "Violence begets violence.  And the struggle begins anew."  This interpretation says 'bad things are going to start happening again'.  Why do I like this interpretation?  Well, just refer back to the Lycidas quote above.

If you STILL aren't happy with the ending, don't worry; I have ideas for a sequel.  I even have a much happier ending planned so I'll just end with saying 'please leave a review'.  Otherwise, due to limited time constraints, I probably won't continue with this.  Sorry for the ultimatum, but I'd like to know if it's worth it.  
  
THANKS again for all your reviews up this point!   I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it.  I really did enjoy the journey!  --- Leila Hime


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